Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer 1986

An Existential Interpretation of Success Neurosis PIERRE-E. LACOCQUE A B S T R A C T : The fear of success is typically interpreted as a neurosis in which the fear of change plays a central role. In spite of agreeing with the existence of this syndrome in clinical practice, this author holds that a similar ambivalence about change lurks within ourselves as well. We are especially like patients in that, in spite of their often unique conflicts, they also run away, like us, from true success. In defining the latter, the author interprets it as synonymous with living an ethical life filled with reverence and respect for all.

For m a n y years now, clinicians have spoken of the fear of success as a syndrome affecting some patients. Surprisingly, there is little consensus among them when it comes to its interpretation. As we shall see, some see it as a mere clinical curiosity applicable only to a few individuals here and there. Others see in the fear of success a more widespread phenomenon and claim women, in general, are most prone to it. Still others believe it is men who are most likely to " c a t c h " this syndrome. I will argue that besides being ambivalent about change, personal knowledge, even healthy g r o w t h - - s y m p t o m s typically associated with patients suffering from success neurosis--we also fear success itself. By "success" I will refer to a type of success surprisingly not much alluded to in the psychological literature. I will define this type of success as synonymous with living an ethical life filled with reverence and respect for all. We all tend to run away from this existential choice, fearing, among other things, change, rejection from others (for being "different" and deviating from the "norm"), and the aloneness it may bring. Patients no doubt often experience unique symptoms and fears, and this certainly holds true for the syndrome under s t u d y here. However, I shall argue that when we view the meaning of success within the ethical context referred to above, these patients, in addition to their unique conflict, also tend to run away, like Jonah, like us, from what I call " t r u e success." This paper first reviews the fear of success as a unique clinical syndrome. It then presents some of the authors who tried to apply the above clinical findings to specific groups. Finally, integrating some of the above contributions, it paves the way toward viewing the fear of success in a more universal light than previously interpreted. Let us now turn to the fear of success as a clinical syndrome. Pierre-E. Lacocque, Ph.D., is a Psychologist and Clinical Supervisor at Lutheran General Hospital, Developmental and Psychiatric Services {Outpatient Psychiatry}, 1775 Dempster, Park Ridge, Illinois 60068. Grateful acknowledgement is made to Stephen Getsinger, Ph.D., for having read and made numerous cogent remarks on this paper. 96

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S u c c e s s neurosis as a clinical s y n d r o m e

As early as 1915, Freud noticed t h a t during the treatment of psychoneuroses an unusual phenomenon arose in some of his patients: success in their work stirred in them acute anxieties. He explained this by postulating that, for some, success meant the symbolical murder of the parent of the same sex. Such fantasy, in turn, would create intense anxiety and guilt feelings, precipitating a state of melancholy which, in some cases, could last for years. Freud described these persons as "those wrecked by success."' As long as success remains a wish and not an actuality, Freud hypothesized the "success neurosis" would not necessarily erupt. But when it becomes a reality, in the case of a person promoted to a better position and salary, for example, it may happen that the beneficiary cannot endure it and may, indeed, become ill. Freud explained thus: People occasionally fall ill precisely because a deeply rooted and long-cherished wish has come to fulfillment. . . . It is not so very unusual for the ego to tolerate a wish as harmless as long as this exists in fantasy alone and seems remote from fulfillment, while it will defend itself hotly against such wish as soon as it approaches fulfillment and threatens to become actuality. 2 Freud gives the example of a woman who had lived a very unhappy live. She meets a man who gives her the kind of understanding, commitment, and love she never had had nor ever dreamt of. Over time, she increasingly feels more optimistic about life, herself, and the future. Their relationship continues to blossom until the inevitable moment of being asked in marriage arises. She soon becomes extremely depressed, loses her sense of joy and self-esteem, and requires long-term psychoanalytic treatment for what Freud diagnoses as an "incurable melancholia." 3 We can only speculate what led this woman to withdraw into an "incurable" depression, since Freud does not give further details on her background history or personality dynamics. Perhaps this would have been a futile attempt on his part, as he was quite puzzled about the etiology of "success neuroses" and plainly admitted not knowing where these censoring and punishing tendencies first originated. The " b e s t " explanation he gave was an Oedipal one. That is, one fears success and its repercussions because one dreads surpassing the parent(s) in happiness, education, wealth, and status. To achieve such goals would imply the possible consequence of being a threat to the parents and of being rejected and ostracized by them. In the case of the above-mentioned patient, Freud interprets her fear of commitment and marriage as resulting from a deep-seated guilt at the thought of surpassing her parents in happiness and self-esteem. 4 Besides Freud's contribution, there have been numerous other endeavors to understand better the underlying causes of the fear of success. A common interpretation seems to be t h a t some patients fear success because they do not feel worthy of it. Fenichel summarizes this thus:

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Success may mean the achievement of something unmerited or "wrong" bringing inferiority or guilt into the open . . . . A success may not only mean something that must bring immediate punishment but also something that stimulates ambition and thus mobilizes fears concerning future failure and future punishment. 5 Tec also interprets such fear as resulting from viewing the idealized success as not justified, hence of viewing oneself as a fraud. 6 To illustrate this point, he gives the example of a woman professor who had published a great deal and was recognized as having made worthwhile contributions to her field. Though externally this person was acknowledged as successful and having reached the best she could ever hope for thus far in her career, internally she felt like a fraud: " A t every point in my career," she said to Tec, "when I moved ahead I always felt that somehow 'they' would find out I was not so good as I appeared to be, as others thought I was, and if I moved to a better, more successful position, 'they' would eventually find out t h a t I didn't belong there.'7 Some authors have attempted to generalize these clinical findings onto the population at large. Horner, for example, went to great length to demonstrate t h a t generally women have a much harder time integrating or aspiring for success than men. 8 To demonstrate her point she devised a very simple experiment. She asked college women to rate a medical student n a m e d " A n n " after learning t h a t at the end of the first term finals, she was at the top of her class. The ratings by these women were everything but flattering. Ann was described as unattractive, unhappy, lonely, man-starved, and a bookworm, among other pejorative adjectives. Ever since childhood, Horner claims, the pressure on women is to be feminine, docile, dependent, and to aspire primarily to become good wives to their husbands. Women have a stronger motive to avoid success than men, she continues, for at least two reasons: First, they fear rejection from men for being too "aggressive" or competitive, hence apprehending being looked upon as "unfeminine"; and second, they fear affiliative loss with other women for violating sex role boundaries2 Along these lines, Dowling speaks of the Cinderella Complex to describe the wish many women have to avoid taking charge of their lives by allowing men o r " Society" to dictate what they should think, do, or feel.'~ Focusing exclusively on men, Kiley speaks of the Peter Pan Syndrome to describe those adult males portraying a similar refusal to "grow u p . " " However, even though I can see evidence for both of these syndromes or complexes in my clinical practice, I believe keeping the sexes apart in their experiences of responsibility avoidance does ultimately more harm than good. My thesis is t h a t this psychological defense, along with those I am about to present, is universal and applicable to both men and women. These defenses creep up, however, in different shapes and forms depending upon who the individual is. Thus, when we look more closely at the reasons for the motive to avoid success in women, for instance, we soon notice t h a t what is at stake for them is the anticipation of being rejected by both men and women should they not conform to "feminine" lifestyles. The apprehension here is of being ostracized, "killed," so to speak, and of being disconnected from others. ,2

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In pondering upon Freud's case and upon those we have reviewed above, a striking phenomenon emerges: For most people change is frightening. For most change is scary, even if it means a better and happier life. To change one's view of oneself requires the leaving behind of old habits and images of ourselves. There is indeed safety in the predictable, even if it means predictable pain and suffering. 13 As Bettelheim describes it, this ambivalence about change can be detected in many children. 14It often appears as a fear of learning new things, that is, as a fear of knowledge. For instance, he explains that children with emotional blocks to learning academic subjects like biology, history, or spelling often display a fear of discovering unpleasant truths about themselves. He gives the example of a girl not learning biology because heredity is part of the subject matter. She refuses to learn about the origin of life because it reminds her of how poorly her own had started. She had been abandoned by her mother and adopted b y unempathic substitute parents who never gave her a true sense of belonging or of being wanted. Another child always read the word home as house. When his past was explored in therapy, it was found that this child never had a real home life, was raised by numerous relatives and foster homes, and never felt really settled in any of these places. Thus, "home" was not among his experiences, because, to him, what he had were houses to go to and live in but none he could call home. The wish to fail in school and often later in life, according to Bettelheim, is a protective device against facing more disturbing knowledge about the self. Indeed, the suppression of dangerous knowledge, of something already known to the self, serves the purpose of maintaining some sense of self-esteem and often, literally, as a way to keep oneself unfragmented. 15 Within the fear of change, I believe, lies an apprehension of not being able to integrate the new knowledge or awareness within the self. That is, the fear is of losing rather than gaining control over the self. And losing control over one's inner processes implies getting in touch with possible disintegration anxieties, confusions, unrestrained impulses, "crazy" thoughts, desires, and so on. And here perhaps lies the most fundamental sign at hand underlying the fear of change: the apprehension of failing and losing the little esteem and sense of identity we m a y have. Unlike those mythical heroes of old who magically seem to find the necessary strength and endurance to fight their demons, we fear confronting ours, as that might lead to the disintegration of the self. In my clinical practice, for instance, I am repeatedly struck by how afraid people are to introspect for fear of going insane. I often hear questions like, " D o you think I'm crazy?" or, " A m I going crazy?" from patients. And if these questions are not directly asked, I then hear them either through my patients' " j o k e s " about how crazy things seem to them or through conveyed images, even through what Langs calls their derivative statements.16 To know means to own; and to own means to be responsible for such knowledge. Says Maslow: We tend to be afraid of any knowledge that could cause us to despise ourselves or

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to make us feel inferior, weak, worthless, evil, shameful. We protect ourselves and our ideal image of ourselves by repression and similar defenses, which are essentially techniques by which we avoid becoming conscious of unpleasant or dangerous truths . . . . Knowledge and action are frequently synonymous, even identical in the Socratic fashion. . . . This close relation between knowing and doing can help us to interpret one cause of the fear of knowing as deeply a fear of doing, a fear of the consequences that flow from knowing, a fear of its dangerous responsibilities. 17 The more impersonal the knowledge, Maslow continues, the safer it is to learn it and contain it within the self. On the other hand, the more personal it becomes, that is, the more it pertains to our inner world, the more suspicious and ambivalent we tend to be. In summary then, one avoids success and personal knowledge in apprehension for the internal changes these inevitably bring. The fear serves as a defense mechanism to help preserve some sense of identity, inner cohesion, and self-esteem. In the final analysis, as we saw, the real issue at hand is that should old thinking or emotional patterns be relinquished, one might now experience disintegration anxieties, hence a taste of "insanity." There is, however, more t h a t needs to be said about the universality of the fear of success t h a t thus far has rarely been alluded to in the psychological literature. If we Iook closely at the definitions of the fear of success, we soon discover it is viewed as a very subjective phenomenon, highly dependent upon the individual's idiosyncratic interpretations. That is, the fear of success is interpreted as a neurosis applicable to only a few non-representational individuals. The problem in seeing the fear of success in this light, as I shall try to explain in the remaining pages, is that it does not call us to feel necessarily implicated or concerned. It becomes a clinical curiosity, a neurosis or pathological response in some patients or specific groups of people. I do not question the wisdom of the interpretations reviewed thus far and recognize m a n y of the aforementioned symptoms as present in some of my patients. However, I maintain these interpretations are too narrow. The fears of knowledge, responsibility, and change are not found in a few patients here and there. We all have a natural tendency not to want to know too much about our inner world; we all tend to be ambivalent whenever change lurks at the horizon. 18 One way we professional helpers often protect ourselves from this fact, for instance, is by calling people suffering from these fears "patients." This convenient label separates us from " t h e m . " They become people I could not possibly identify myself with, people in need of " t h e r a p y " ; in other words, people who are " n o t me." There is indeed a much thinner line between " t h e m " and us, so-called normal ones, especially when it comes to such issues as personal knowledge, change, responsibility, and yes, success too. Many of us do not experience the internal conflicts about success some patients go through. In fact, m a n y among us may even feel quite good about our status and "success" in life. However, where we err, I believe, is in assuming that feeling good about something necessarily implies being right. In and of itself, feeling good about anything has nothing to do with success and, for t h a t matter, has nothing to do with mental health. Hitler, Mussolini,

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and the Reverend Jim Jones (Jonestown}, for example, serve as points of reference attesting to this truth. 19 The crucial question is: W h a t is true success? To be able to define the particular {success neurosis), it seems to me, we must first comprehend the whole {true success, ultimate meaning}. Let us now turn to another definition of success.

The fear of success redefined Success, really, is a vague term. For a four-year-old girl who for weeks on end has been practicing riding a bicycle, success implies mastering t h a t task. Selfesteem would follow once she reaches her goal. Hitler, on the other hand, had his interpretation of success, worked incessantly toward it, even found selfesteem and meaning in his life. Fearing success--and, for t h a t matter, fearing failure--does not tell us anything about how healthy or pathological these phenomena m a y be. Apprehending failure on Hitler's part t h a t he would not be able to impose the Aryan superiority over the races of the world, for instance, is certainly one type of fear of personal failure. Fearing failure in the case of Mother Teresa of Calcutta for not being able better to console the dying presents an entirely different context from which to interpret such fear. In both cases symptoms of anxiety, sleeplessness, depression, and so on might be experienced in exactly the same way. Before we psychologists can speak safely of mental health and healthy meanings in life, we ought to be paying more attention to the role ethics--and for that matter death awareness, an awareness apparently not detected by Maslow in his study of self-actualizing persons--play in shaping them. 2~ In speaking of success and " h e a l t h y " meanings in life, too m a n y psychologists seem content to orient people to their inner worlds. They encourage people to work deep within in order to detect those talents and potentialities they feel are worth actualizing. What we have here is possibly an exhortation to hedonism. Ultimately, I believe we cannot rely on experiences, feelings, or emotions alone to guide us toward "health." We cannot rely on them to pronounce a n y t h i n g as good or worth actualizing. We need to evaluate them on specific ethical grounds to validate them as being so. Living a successful life, as we shall see, means living an ethical life, a life filled with reverence and respect for all. 2, For many years Schweitzer searched for a heuristic term t h a t could explain clearly the true meaning of success and life's purpose. On a boat trip to N'Gomo where he was needed for medical services, 120 miles upstream from Lambarene, Schweitzer had made up his mind t h a t he would devote his entire trip to the problem "of how a culture could be brought into being t h a t possessed a greater moral depth and energy than the one we lived in. ''22 Page after page was filled with disconnected sentences without success or insights as to how to solve this problem. Weariness and sense of despair grew more and more intense. Schweitzer did not give up, since he intuitively knew he had touched a fundamental question. On the third day of his trip an insight

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erupted, and the phrase "reverence for life" came to his mind, a phrase to his knowledge he never had heard before or read about. He immediately realized he had detected the solution to the problem t hat had been t ort uri ng him. After a few trials and errors he concluded t h a t reverence for life had to be defined the following way: The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach. A man is ethical [that is, successful] only when life as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help . . . . Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and living creatures within our reach . . . . Through reverence for life, we become, in effect, different persons [that is, persons I call "beings-for-the-world" {emphasis mine)]. 23 Success, meaning, health, and the ultimate purpose of life are but e m p t y concepts, he asserted, unless strongly embedded within the specific ethical context of reverence for all life. I, for one, do not fool myself into thinking t hat because I feel good about m y decent salary, come from a good university, and work in a respected hospital, I have now reached "success." I am only too aware of how much a failure I am in not being able to touch more people, to devote more of m y time to social causes, or to help the hungr y and needy better. I already know what it would entail for me to aim at becoming a being-for-the-world, but I dread the expenditure of energy and self-control it would really require of me. And I suspect the very same apprehension applies to most of us. This is what Maslow called the J o n a h syndrome. ~4 Says he: " I t is precisely the godlike in ourselves that we are fascinated by and fearful of, m ot i vat ed to and defensive against." 25 Moreover, what adds to the already difficult process of actualizing the godlike within lies in the fact t h a t besides the fears of losing our selfesteem or sanity in the process of change, as we saw, this ethical lifestyle does not protect us from pain and suffering. For the likes of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Martin L ut he r King, Gandhi, and Albert Schweitzer, for example, psychic pains and scars are present--indeed, are part of their daily experiences. They are not spared loneliness, emptiness, hopelessness. In her man y interviews with reporters and visitors, for instance, Mother Teresa reports feeling like an e m p t y vessel, a limp rag, alone, even miserable. 26 Schweitzer also acknowledged t hat only at quite rare m om ent s had he felt glad to be alive. He felt with a " s y m p a t h y full of r e g r e t " all the pain t h a t he saw around him, not only t h a t of men but t hat of the whole creation. 27 However, I suspect t h a t what allows these modern saints to tolerate, perhaps even appreciate, their ordeals and sufferings is the conviction t hat there are no higher or richer spiritual meanings t hat can be detected in life than those found in the daily struggles to become beings-for-the-world. There is nothing more life-sustaining, I believe, than having an ultimate purpose of this kind which transforms despair and emptiness into hope and meaning.

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Conclusion

The clinical literature has shown that underneath success neurosis lurk the fear of change and associated fears preventing patients from achieving cherished personal or vocational goals. They fear rejection, aloneness, lower self-esteem, and even loss of sanity should they dare a t t e m p t to actualize these goals. In spite of not disagreeing with the existence of this syndrome in clinical practice, and even acknowledging some of its features as unique and, therefore, not as universal, I have held that the very same type of ambivalence about change exists within ourselves as well. Patients, no doubt, are often burdened with unique sufferings and conflicts, but that does not mean they do not also run away like Jonah, like us, from true success. And it is in this specific context that we all have identical conflicts. When it comes specifically to the kind of change becoming being-for-the-world requires, we can, I believe, detect the full-fledged gamut of defenses and fears we find in those patients supposedly suffering from a "unique" and "uncommon" syndrome--that is, the fear of success. One possible reason for not seeing universal components of the fear of success is the tendency among us, psychologists and helping professionals, to regard patients as repositories of pathologies, feelings, apprehensions, or what have you, that we claim not to have within ourselves. While this view certainly contains some truth--after all, pedophilia, sociopathy, and transvestism, for example, are not to be classified as universal experiences--when taken to extremes, it tends to look at patients as oddities, as people with whom we have little in common. Another reason m a y be that being less emotionally vulnerable and more "sophisticated" than patients, we fool ourselves in thinking we are healthy because we feel quite content with our life. Feeling good about anything can serve as rationalization for believing there is nothing better or more important than that feeling. Resolving our oedipal issues, success phobias, separation anxieties, or what have you, does not necessarily guarantee a successful life. Sure insights, indeed any insights into ourselves, no doubt always widen our horizons. They offer relief, hope, and sometimes even an improved self-esteem. But in terms of the success I am alluding to here, they only offer a better opportunity to contribute more fully to life and humankind. To think, "I'll give more of myself when I am ready" is doomed to failure. We never are, or at the very least rarely are, fully ready, be it ready for marriage, for leaving home, for the death of a loved one. There are always some battles waiting to be fought, always psychological scars to heal. Success is willingness to give whatever I have genuinely available at the moment, be it little, be it much. Success is an on-going attitude, a willingness to be open to everything and everyone. It is an attitude that relies heavily on specific ethical standards to label behaviors, thoughts, and emotions as worthy and worth actualizing. Says Adler: The man who meets the problems of life successfully acts as if he recognized fully

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and spontaneously that the meaning of life is interest in others and cooperation. Everything he does seems to be guided by the interest of his fellow beings; and where he meets difficulties he tries to surmount them only by means consonant with human welfare.2S Perhaps the best preparation to become a being-for-the-world is to train ourselves to think ethically at all times, to be attentive, receptive, and willing to give the best we possibly can at any given moment. But there are, unfortunately, some limitations to this kind of "training," because to plan ahead and predict how we will behave or respond to future encounters with people or life is robbing them and ourselves of spontaneity, genuineness, and surprise. I am confident, however, t h a t should we genuinely and honestly act with these values in mind, we cannot fail. It takes courage, integrity, and the willingness to risk and face possibly unforeseen anxieties when choosing to become beings-for-the-world. But as we saw above, regardless of the emotional cost it entails, one is drawn to this goal because of the conviction t h a t there is no greater purpose in life. And even if so m a n y people, including ourselves, vacillate or reject this existential option, can anyone really deny it is the most noble and ethically valid goal available to all humankind? Can anyone really claim there are other life-sustaining values or meanings as ethically powerful as this one which not only benefit the subject, but other human beings and life as a whole, all at the very same time? True, there is always more each and everyone can do to improve the condition of the world around us. But is not each new day another challenge, another opportunity for rebirth, a new opportunity to redeem ourselves? It is really all up to us; a knowledge I suspect we already have but wish not to acknowledge fully. Destiny, ours and the world's, is nowhere shaped but in our own hearts and hands.

References 1. Freud, S., "Some Character-types Met with in Psychoanalytic Work" (1915). In Collected Papers. New York, Basic Books, 1959, pp. 318-344. 2. Ibid., pp. 324, 325. For Melanie Klein it is the fantasy itself that first promotes the anxiety. And this is regardless of whether it becomes reality or not. Later, Freud softened his stand on the relation between fantasy and anxiety and held that indeed fantasies alone without their materialization in reality can provoke disturbing emotional responses. See Klein, M., "Love, Guilt and Reparation" (1937). In Klein, M., and Riviere, J., Love, Hate and Reparation. New York, W.W. Norton, 1964, pp. 57-119; and Freud, S., Civilization and I t s Discontents (1930). New York, W.W. Norton, 1961, e.g., p. 84. 3. Freud, "Some Character-types Met with in Psychoanalytic Work," op. cit., p. 325. Freud gives also the example of a university professor who had longed for many years one day to succeed his mentor and head of his department in which his professor was affiliated. When the wish finally became a reality, as his mentor retired and his colleagues elected him as replacement, he fell into so deep a depression t h a t it took apparently many years to overcome it. 4. As I see it, noncommitment may be an a t t e m p t at preserving some sense of esteem and inner cohesion. Once committed, to a marriage, for instance, our freedom is necessarily restricted. We are now expected to think of two people instead of one, to communicate feelings and desires, to resolve misunderstandings, to compromise, to contribute in household chores, and so on. For many people j u s t the idea of commitments already scares them. With

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6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

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15. 16. 17. 18.

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it they associate suffocation, engulfment, pressures, unhappiness. I t is scary for them, because in a sense commitment implies a death of sorts. Says Yalom: " C o m m i t m e n t carries with it the connotation of finality, and m a n y individuals cannot settle into a p e r m a n e n t relationship because t h a t would mean 'this is it,' no more possibilities . . . " Cf. Yalom, I., Existential Psychotherapy. New York, Basic Books, 1980, p. 171. See also Lacocque, P-E., " F e a r of Engulfment and the Problem of Identity," J. Religion and Health, 1984, 23, 3,218228. Fenichel, O., The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New York, W.W. Norton, 1945, p. 457. Fenichel also has a concept called "The Don J u a n of A c h i e v e m e n t " (Ibid., pp. 502ff.) which he labels to explain those persons who are unable to satisfy their self-esteem needs t h r o u g h success: they go compulsively from success to success, always wanting more t h a n previously achieved. Tec, L., The FearofSuccess. New York, Reader's Digest Press, 1976. Ibid., p. 162. Horner, M.S., "The Motive to Avoid Success and Changing Aspirations in College Women." In Bardwick, J., ed., Readings on the Psychology of Women. New York, Harper & Row, 1972, pp. 62-68. See also her "Toward an U n d e r s t a n d i n g of Achievement-Related Conflicts in Women," J. Social Issues, 1979, 28, 157-175. For an excellent review of the experimental evidence and research on Horner's theoretical concepts, see Tresemer, D., The Fear of Success. New York, Plenum Press, 1977, pp. 32-47 and 107-131. See also Canavan-Gumpert, D.; Garner, K.; and Gumpert, P., The SuccessFearing Personality. Lexington, Mass., D.C. H e a t h & Co., 1978. In the U.S., black men have also been found to show a stronger motive to avoid success t h a n their white counterparts. The reason usually given for such phenomena is t h a t the black men are a t h r e a t to white men and are thus not "invited" to succeed in a predominantly white male society. Cf. Weston, P., and Mednick, M.T., "Race, Social Class, and the Motive to Avoid Success in Women," J. Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1970, 1, 284-291. See also Mednick, M.T., and Puryear, G.R., "Motivational and Personality Factors Related to Career Goals of Black College Women," J. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1975, 21, 1-30. Dowling, C., The Cinderella Complex. New York, Pocket Books, 1981. See also Deutsch, H., The Psychology of Women. New York, Grune & Stratton, 1944. Kiley, D., The PeterPan Syndrome. New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1983. Cf. Lacocque, P-E., "Desacralizing Life and its Mystery: The J o n a h Complex Revisited," J. Psychology and Theology, 1982, 10, 113-119. Such reluctance to change is even more pronounced among the psychotics. Ever since childhood m a n y of these p a t i e n t s have had pressures exerted on t h e m not to wish to change, not to try to individuate and separate from the parent(s) unless they are willing to be abandoned and rejected. The psychotics, especially the schizophrenics, often equate individuation with a killing of sorts, because the parents, directly or indirectly, have conveyed to them t h a t should symbiosis be broken, the parents would "die," t h a t is, become insane. Because fathers are often, for one reason or another, out of the p a r e n t i n g picture, it is the mothers who usually exert such pressures not to wish to change. These mothers often spare themselves a full-blown psychosis by setting up family relationships in which autonomous behaviors are neither allowed nor reinforced. For example, see Mahler, M., On Human Symbiosis and the Vicissitudes of Individuation. New York, I n t e r n a t i o n a l Universities Press, 1968; Masterson, J., and Rinsley, D., "The Borderline Syndrome: The Role of the Mother in the Genesis and Psychic Structure of the Borderline Personality," International J. Psychoanalysis, 1975, 56, 163-178; and Searles, H., " A n x i e t y Concerning Change as Seen in the Psychotherapy of Schizophrenic P a t i e n t s - - W i t h Particular Reference to the Sense of Personal Identity," (1961) in his Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects. New York, International Universities Press, 1965, pp. 443-464. Cf. Bettelheim, B., Love is Not Enough. New York, Avon Books, 1950, pp. 146-183; "The Decision to Fail," (1961) in his Surviving. New York, Vintage Books, 1979, pp. 142-168; and with Zelan, K., On Learning to Rea& The Child's Fascination with Meaning. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. Cf. Lacocque, " F e a r of Engulfment and the Problem of Identity," op. cit. Langs, R., The Listening Process. New York, J a s o n Aronson, 1978. Maslow, A.H., Toward a Psychology of Being. Princeton, N.J., Van N o s t r a n d Reinhold, 1968, pp. 60, 66. Some authors have already tried to d e m o n s t r a t e the universal components to some of the fears I associate with success. See, for example, Angyal, A., " E v a s i o n of G r o w t h , "

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19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Journal of Religion and Health

American J. Psychiatry, 1953, 110, 358-362; Cohen, S.H., "A Growth Theory of Neurotic Resistance to Therapy," J. Humanistic Psychology, 1961, 1, 48-63; a n d Mastow, A.H., "Neurosis as a Failure of Personal Growth," {1967} in The Further Reaches o f H u m a n Nature. New York, Penguin Books, 1971, pp. 24-39. ! differ from these contributions specifically in my interpretation of healthy values, goals, or meanings in life, hence of "success" as well. Cf. Lacocque, P-E., "On the Search for Meaning," J. Religion and Health, 1982, 21, 3,219-227., and "Desacralizing Life and its Mystery," op. cit. Cf. Lacocque, "On the Search for Meaning," op. cit. Ibid. See, for example, Schweitzer, A., Out o f M y Life and Thought. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1933., and "The Ethics of Reverence for Life," Christendom, 1936, 1, 225-239. Reverence forLife. New York, Philosophical Library, 1965, p, 56. These two quotes come respectively from Joy, C.R., ed., Albert Sehweitzer: A n Anthology. New York, Harper & Row, 1947, pp. 271-272, andReverence forLife, op. cir., p. 57. Cf. Maslow, "Neurosis as a Failure of Personal Growth," op. cit. Toward a Psychology of Being, ot). cit., p. 61. For a critique of Maslow's interpretation of the J o n a h syndrome, see Lacocque, "Desacralizing Life and its M y s t e r y , " op. cit. See Serrou, l~., Teresa o f Calcutta. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1980. Cf. Schweitzer, Out of M y Life and Thought, op. cit. Adler, A., What Life Should Mean to You. New York, Capricorn Books, 1958, pp. 9-10.

An existential interpretation of success neurosis.

The fear of success is typically interpreted as a neurosis in which the fear of change plays a central role. In spite of agreeing with the existence o...
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