Phaeton Complex

To summarise the pattern that has been labelled "the Phaeton Complex".

Our survival ultimately depends upon the strength of the shared relationship between parents and their children. The relationship involves cuddling, hugging and stroking, but it also develops into helping the little child to feel worthwhile. Frustrating this drive creates great anxiety. We may well cover up our feelings of rejection, we may not any longer be consciously aware of the feelings, but we will be driven to overcome the inner anxiety by proving ourselves over and over again to be worthwhile, to be worthy of love or admiration. The Phaeton Complex, the behaviour pattern we have been describing, is important. So many have experienced abuse as children. So many have experienced a broken home. The damaging effects on our society of the mushrooming number of divorces, and of working mothers and home-alone children, are likely to be incalculable. It is always sad to see the change in facial expression and to hear the drop in voice pitch as my senior executives relive the memories of their home life. Frequently we both find during our talks that it is their suppressed memories that fuelled their almost obsessional desire to succeed. Do not doubt the prevalence of this pattern. Lucille Ironmongers book "The Fiery Chariot"9 contains the biographies of 24 British Prime Ministers, from Spencer Perceval in 1809 to Chamberlain in 1937. She found that 16 of them, or almost 70%, had either known no parents or had lost a parent in childhood. They all showed abnormal sensitivity, a tendency towards solitariness and reserve and an obsessive need for love, approval and the provision of total support. Other common characteristics included recklessness and a belief in the supernatural.

In his book "Our Own Worst Enemy" Norman Dixon diagrams the possible behavioural pattern between loss of a parent and these character traits.

loss or lack of parents

Two recent US Presidents provide further examples of leaders driven by their childhood experiences.

Richard Nixon: Quaker mother rejected her son, father frequently beat him. There was no kissing or cuddling. Nixon reacted by turning away claiming to be nauseated by physical contact, and love. He came to have to prove he didnt need anyone, fearful that he would look vulnerable, weak. Kissinger however understood Nixons psyche. "He would have been a great man had somebody loved him".

Bill Clinton: never knew who his father was, was brought up by his beloved grandmother and then fought over by mother and grandmother, brutalised by drunkard, womanising, wife-beating stepfather. He grew up having to be liked, anxious to placate, and unable to reconcile strong values with cover-up and pretence.

For more detail read the brilliant biographies by Summers and Hamilton.

  • "The Arrogance of Power" Anthony Summers: Victor Gollancz, 2000.
  • "Bill Clinton" Nigel Hamilton: Century Press, 2003.

Dixon spotlights how frequently "the child is father to the man". The “man” is frustrated, unhappy, exasperated by his or her failure to achieve fulfilment. The fundamental issue is a lack of self-understanding and also the almost complete inability to look at people from the others standpoint rather than their own. (This will become especially relevant when we look later at Understanding Communicating & Listening – Chapter 5). They so often simply do not see the havoc they cause to others lives, they do not remotely have the ability to question themselves. They are so driven by demons, in short, that they do not start to comprehend. And it is from this pool that our leaders are chosen. Who in their right mind would devote their whole lives to improving the biscuit, the hamburger, the pint of beer, at the cost of their families, their loved ones, their friendships? Many of those who do are driven, they are self-absorbed, and they do not remotely understand. Let Norman Dixon summarise the significance of this breed of leaders who make up so many of our Prime Ministers, Presidents and CEOs. He is talking in particular about the destructive propensity of leaders in going to war.

“The world contains people who are driven by unconscious motives to achieve positions in which they can command the destruction of their fellow man.Unaware of the dark forces which propel them, they cannot resist these motives or appreciate the infantile origins and irrationality of their behaviour, AND are not able through the defence of rationalisation to avoid the restraining influences of guilt and shame but are actually encouraged by society to fulfil its aggressive fantasies, and are bent upon destruction. If "our world” contains such people our days are truly numbered."

 

Comment on this page