Charismatic Leadership as a Confusion of Tongues:
Trauma and Retraumatization¹
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In Sandor Ferenczi’s famous paper, “Confusion of Tongues between the Adult and the Child” (Ferenczi, 1933), he articulates the dynamics of sexual abuse that have remained unsurpassed in the literature. His theory, while maintaining clinical relevance, has also been extended to describe trauma which is not physical or sexual in nature (Balint, 1968; Rachman, 1997). I am referring here to emotional neglect, maternal unavailability, abandonment, and “traumatic aloneness” (Ferenczi, 1932). In recognizing implications of such abandonment, Ferenczi (1932) was to write in the “….fear of being abandoned by the mother, that is, the threat libido will be withdrawn; the latter feels just as deadly as an aggressive threat to life” (pg. 18).

In this paper I will highlight Ferenczi’s theoretical model of such trauma as a confusion of tongues. I will then describe the relevance of the Ferenczian concepts of identification with the aggressor and introjection in understanding self serving charismatic leadership and professional retraumatization. A psychotherapy training group with cult like characteristics and a clinical example will serve as a demonstration of these principles.

Ferenczi’s Theory of Trauma

Since Ferenczi’s trauma theory has been shrouded with suspicion, and misunderstanding, I would like to begin this paper with a brief review. Trauma is a series of experiences, most frequently in childhood, that overwhelm the individual. The events or experiences are horrific and both disrupt and impede synthetic and integrative functions of the ego. Not all trauma, however, becomes pathogenic. Trauma becomes pathological when there is no empathetic, responsive adult caregiver consistently available. The experiences, instead, are met with denial, rejection, induction of guilt feelings, hypocrisy, or repeated traumas by important others (Ferenczi 1930, 1932, 1933). Ferenczi has described this relational process as a confusion of tongues (Ferenczi, 1933).

Since much of Ferenczi’s writing focuses on sexual trauma, let us examine the necessary mechanisms and processes of pathogenic trauma using this type of experience.

1. The natural playfulness of a child while perhaps having “erotic forms,” is essentially tender. Pathological adults mistake this play for passion and become sexually stimulated. In sexual abuse the adult acts on stimulation by seducing a child.
   
   
2. Ferenczi (1933) writes, “children feel physically and morally helpless when seduced. They are vulnerable with few defenses and their experienced helplessness is real as they are without power.” This helplessness “compels them to subordinate themselves like automata.” With the abuser these children go so far as to “divine each of his desires and gratify these” (pg. 228). Children are then overwhelmed, without choice.
   
   
3. In order for this process to occur, a child must introject the aggressor, suspending his or her own experience. The child steps out “beside itself” (Ferenczi, 1932; pg. 32) in a process of dissociation. The suspension is a “transitory psychosis,” i.e., a turning away from reality. Perhaps more aptly, a traumatic trance.
   
   
4. The most important shift is the “introjection of guilt feelings of the child” (Ferenczi, 1932; pg. 228). The child feels responsible and guilty in his silence. Out of a fear for the consequences, i.e., further abuse or rejection, and in an attempt to maintain feelings of previous tenderness, the child “….reacts to sudden unpleasure not by defense, but by anxiety-ridden identification and by introjection of the menacing person or aggressor” (pg. 228).
   
   
5. As a child recovers from the attack, “He feels enormously confused, in fact, split, innocent and culpable at the same time – and his confidence in his own senses is broken.” The child comes to doubt his or her very ability to remember clearly what happened.
   
   
6. While the child suffers, the adult frequently acts as if nothing has happened, confusing the child further and fostering additional silence. Alternately, the abuser is harsh, judgmental and severe to “save the child.” Either way, the child is neglected and there is no healthy resolution, leaving the child in a continued, suspended state of raw vulnerability.
   
   
7. The original trauma is then followed by a second trauma of denial, usually by the mother. Because of the distant family relationship, where no one is available for comfort, the child’s timid attempts for intimacy are refused as “nonsensical.” These actions solidify the trauma and the child becomes mechanical, detached, stoic, or defiant. The child is alone, in terrible fear, and inconsolable.
   
   
8. This entire process leads to a splitting of the personality. Such splitting leads to uneven development for the children; precocious in some areas, slower in others, and confusion, passivity and fragmentation reign.
   

As noted, Ferenczi recognized that trauma can occur from inappropriate as well as unempathic responsiveness. These descriptions of the effects and processes of trauma extend beyond sexual abuse. In describing the cases of pathogenic trauma, Ferenczi writes:

“It became evident that this is far more rare the result of a constitutional hypersensitivity in children (causes them to react neurotically, even to a commonplace and unavoidable and painful experience) than that of a really improper, unintelligent, capricious, tactless or actual cool treatment” (Ferenczi, 1929; pg. 120-121).

In his “Confusion of Tongues” paper Ferenczi was to describe “a third method of helplessly binding a child to an adult” (the first two of course were passionate love and passionate punishment). He refers to this process as the “terrorism of suffering.” The child feels the responsibility, the compulsion to right the disorder of the family. She takes on the burden of worries, disappointments, failings, fears, and guilt and blame for the unhappiness of the maternal figure. She also comes to believe that if the parent is soothed in some fashion the threat will be lessened and the child will have the love and care she so seeks.

The child, however, becomes so attentive to the adult that he or she does not develop a coherent, stable, separate sense of self. Being exquisitely attuned to the whims, preoccupations and anxieties of those the child is so dependent on, leaves the child feeling fragmented and confused about his or her internal states.

Identification and Introjection: Protective Partners

Frankel’s (2002) elucidation of the defense mechanism of identification with the aggressor offers further clarity to this process. In this paper, Frankel describes the ubiquitous nature of this mechanism and the complementary yet distinctively different qualities of identification and introjection. According to him:

“As I understand Ferenczi’s use of these terms, identification means trying to feel something that someone else feels – essentially, getting into his head, molding ones own experience into his. In the case of someone feeling threatened, the identification is a way to guide ones adaptation to the frightening person. Introjection is about getting an image of the attacker into ones own head. Doing so may help one feel more in control of the outer threat, feel that the threat has been transformed into a more manageable inner one – what Fairbairn (1943) called “internalizing the bad object” (pg. 106-107).

Frankel posits a continuum for identification with the aggressor, from rigid and pervasive use of this defense with the severely traumatized, to the more immediate, specific and temporary use by those less traumatized, and as part of everyday functioning. Introjection is on the other hand, a more profound, consuming, damaged, and fixed internal state. Most significantly for issues of abandonment and maternal neglect, identification with the aggressor and introjection work in tandem, as mechanisms which develop in response to childhood trauma, in order to maintain the fiction that the parent is being tender, and not passionate, abusive, or unempathic. The child must maintain this fiction so the core self will not fragment, affect will be regulated, and attachment will not be severed. In the case of identification with the aggressor, in particular, the child rejects his/her own sense of reality, accepting the definition of the reality of the abuser. This binds the abused to the abuser in a profound way, and at a crucial time of personality development. Therefore, the aggressor exploits the phase appropriate need of the child for tenderness by imposing his/her narcissistic need for sexual, physical, or as in the case I will describe, emotional fulfillment.

For the child who is traumatically alone, identification and introjection also offer attempted positive connection. Such a process serves multiple purposes, but perhaps the most significant is the child’s attempt at self soothing, that is, an attempt to regulate the unbearable trauma of isolation. In the absence of a true, external, secure attachment, the child creates some approximation of one, both intrapsychically and interpersonally. The child can experience himself as he is seen by the rejecting parent(s) which establishes one linking, while behaviorally acting in accord with how he was treated, which is the second link. This is also an attempt to communicate to others, the child’s internal state of distress via projective identification. In this process the child attempts to put himself into others so they may feel his experience, and it’s now a third link or attachment. This is often true, not only with parents, but with subsequent authority figures where there is “the asymmetrical exercise of power” (Vida, 1998).

Self Serving Charismatic Leaders and Their Followers: Shared Traumas

It is my contention that adults who, as children, have been emotionally abandoned or used emotionally to meet the narcissistic demands of parents are particularly vulnerable to the influence of charismatic leaders. Through the use of identification and introjection some adults are drawn to those who are behaviorally different, seemingly more confident and available, yet possess the same intrapsychic structure as their narcissistically preoccupied parents. This process is further complicated as many charismatic leaders suffer from similar emotional histories which are disavowed yet remain keenly active. Kohut (1978) for example, in describing charismatic personalities writes:

“Genetically important is the fact, as formulated in gross approximation, that these persons suffered early severe narcissistic injuries, mainly because of the unreliability and unpredictability of the empathic responses to them from the side either of the echoing-mirroring or of the idealized self-object. (pg. 414).

Since such leaders need the dependence of others as regulators of their self esteem they encourage identification and introjection from their followers. The traumatized adult seeks “merger with all-powerful and all-knowing ideal figures” (Kohut, 1969-1970; pg. 108) to establish a deeply longed for emotional connection. Through identification with the aggressor such individuals can feel more powerful and competent. They also feel special as they are needed to provide the narcissistic supplies charismatic personalities require. The world now for both leader and follower is more predictable, certain and bearable. Brothers (2002) suggests,

“….that the bond between many charismatic leaders and their followers endures so powerfully for the very reason that they urgently need one another to regulate uncertainty” (pg. 2).

In a repetition of childhood trauma, however, a “confusion of tongues” develops. According to Ferenczi, a confusion of tongues is created when someone of lesser status (a child, a supervisee, or patient) becomes “tongue-tied” and cannot speak about his or her own experience in the presence of the powerful authority (parent, supervisor, or therapist) with whom he or she has had an abusive relationship. The core psychodynamic is that the individual’s functioning is compromised by the authority’s exercise of power, control, and status to fulfill narcissistic needs with a dissociative process ensuing. The victim of such trauma comes to doubt his or her experience, perceptions, and understanding of such abuse of authority. The victim comes to believe the authority’s view of events as real and when in conflict, his or her own as distorted or wrong.

Training Programs in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: The Potential for Professional Retraumatization

Some fifty years ago Balint (1948) applied Ferenczi’s concept of identification with the aggressor to analytic training institutes. He wrote:

“The general aim….is to force the candidate to identify himself with his initiator, to introject the initiator and his ideals, and to build up from these identifications a strong super-ego which will influence him all his life. This is a surprising discovery indeed. What we consciously intend to
achieve with our candidates, is that they should develop a strong critical ego, capable of bearing considerable strains, free from necessary identification, and from any automatic transference or thinking patterns. Contrary to the conscious aim, our own behavior as well as the working of the training system have several features leading necessarily to a weakening of these ego functions and to the formulation and strengthening of a special kind of super-ego” (pg. 176)

More recently Berman (2002) has introduced the term “false analytic self” to describe “analytic identity elements….based on identification with one’s analyst and teachers as aggressors” (pg. 149).

The dangers of identification with the aggressor, introjection, and the subsequent confusion of tongues are much more pronounced when the leaders of training programs are charismatic personalities. I will briefly examine the supervision provided by a particular psychotherapy training institute, which for the purpose of this paper I will call “The Father Imago Training Program”. I hope to demonstrate in this discussion, the process of professional retraumatization. A detailed clinical example will then be presented to put an immediate and human face on the dynamics of such retrauma.

“The Father Imago Training Program” was run by a charismatic and emotionally intense psycotherapist. He claimed to develop his own treatment model and gives few other theoreticians or scholars credit for any influence in the formulation of his theory, although he was trained psychoanalytically and the influence of Reich (1949), Greenson (1967), and Kernberg (1975) can be seen in his reliance on confrontation as a primary treatment technique. This psychotherapist went beyond the mainstream, however, in his inclusion of ridicule and threat, as valid treatment interventions. In this approach, the therapist is intentionally established as the powerful idealized father imago. Transferences are actively encouraged and manipulated to maintain the authority and the power of the therapist.

There are no deviations from the basic psychotherapeutic and treatment principles as delineated by this leader. Deviations from the prescribed way of conducting treatment are seen as evidence of therapist character pathology. Deviations are also considered unethical and examples of malpractice. Since much of the training occurs within a group context there is also the intense pressure of the group. Other supervisees band together to corral a deviant member and persistent pressure is applied until this individual submits, usually echoing the observations of the leader/supervisor. The ability of the individual to think clearly for him or her self is systematically challenged and defeated.

On the face of it, in this brief description, one may wonder why anyone would get involved with such an organization. The interpersonal appeal frequently comes from the intense emotional interaction, charisma, and excitement inherent in this program. New members are often greeted warmly and treated to lavish attention. They can be invited to wonderful meals, provoked by intellectual discussion, and engaged in a lively entertaining social milieu. The finest wines, music and food are an integral part of such sumptuous experiences. The originator in particular, along with some of the senior members, possesses a social grace and sophistication that is enticing. The apparent confidence of these individuals is stunning and the unstated promise is made that to follow their way is to live like them. Acceptance, direction and meaning are offered by demonstration.

Unswerving loyalty is soon seen as the highest virtue in this training system. Loyalty is essentially defined as agreement. This agreement is an exercise in engagement, resulting in intense intimate exchanges. But the outcome is expected to be, and usually is, agreement after all. Any substantial disagreements, leading to new or different ways of thinking about therapy or interventions, are seen as acts of disloyalty and are evidence of the individual’s character pathology. The support and emotional riches are available only to the believers. Dissidence, the height of intellectual functioning and the hallmark of evolution and change, is driven underground and surfaces under non-essential issues. In fact, disagreements over arcane theoretical matters that are not essential give the illusion of greater openness than in fact actually exists. The individual, at times, is threatened with the loss of the relationship with the supervisor/therapist if he or she continues to disagree. Cohesion is maintained by distorting legitimate self-object needs.

Not only are the professional worlds of members of this training program overlapping, so are the social worlds. There is an intense inter-mingling of the political, social and cultural. Individuals then essentially think the same politically, appreciate the same music, engage in similar recreational activities, and attend many of the same social functions. It is an exclusive club that rewards its members richly and shuns any who may be seen as a threat to the harmony of this club. The training for this program is emotionally demanding. A unique component of this training is group supervision. In this model the lines between supervision and therapy are intentionally blurred. The theoretical rationale is that the therapist/trainee is viewed as the instrument of change and, therefore, a resolution of character issues (counter transference reactions) and more damaging, deviations from technique, are considered paramount. The trainee then is continually challenged, confronted, and exposed for inherent weaknesses that prevent the full adoption of this treatment model.

The theoretical model of this type of supervision leaves little to question. The answers are assumed and disagreement is viewed as intellectual posturing. As a result, a rather precarious and at times hostile view of the social psychological community is established. Supervisors view themselves as keepers of the faith and their answers, honed by years of intensive self-examination and self-scrutiny within this theoretic model, are believed to be the only true answers. Since there is no dissidence allowed this becomes an autocratic and rigidified model strongly resembling a cult. Kriegman and Solomon (1985) describe such a process when they wrote that cult groups,

“….actually strive to have the members replace their own world views and independence of judgment with a totalistic ideology that demands complete adherence in uniformity among members” (pg.11).

Further, Dorpat (1996) in writing specifically about psychotherapy cults found such cults,

“….instruct and indoctrinate their followers to think in dichotomies, stereotypes, and clichés. Followers form a pathologically dependent and submissive relationship with the cult leader, and their submissive attitude toward their leaders brings many of them to lose, or to at least
suspend, their individuality, flexibility, and critical thinking.”

Clinical Case Study

Dr. A said he always knew he wasn’t wanted. It wasn’t until he was well into his professional training that he could admit this to anyone else. The eldest of three children, he was always told how proud his mother was of him any time he was successful. The problem was he was seldom successful as defined by her; he was anxious and easily frightened. In telling her of his fears she would respond, “You are only trying to frighten me” and then explain to him how “unreasonable” his fears were. She seldom comforted him. He doesn’t remember ever sitting on her lap, “mustn’t muss mommy,” nor does he recall her singing to him or playing with him.

Dr. A grew up feeling he needed to be sensitive to his mother’s feelings. He tried to be “good” by going silent about his own feelings but alert to his Mother’s anxieties. Interestingly, he was seldom ill as a child because he knew she would feel helpless and become angry with him. Dr. A could not, however, control his fear of being alone which surfaced at night. Having to go to bed, usually unescorted, and laying in the dark for hours before falling asleep, contributed to a lifetime of sleep disturbances and insomnia. Going to sleep without parental soothing and support became a dread of abandonment and even death.

The story of Dr. A’s birth is both poignant and revealing. He was born a week earlier than expected because the doctor, a general practitioner, wanted to go deer hunting and told Dr. A’s mother to drink caster-oil to “hurry the little guy along.” She complied. This was a narcissistically absorbed mother, who may have suffered from her own confusion of tongues, since she allowed an authority to redefine her reality and endanger her unborn infant. Whether due to the caster-oil or not, the “little guy” did indeed learn to hurry. He also learned to put the desires of others ahead of his own, to anticipate even what those desires might be so as not to disappoint. He became proficient at submerging many of his own wishes as he sought to please others, taking what little praise he could find as his reward.

Dr. A described an early example of these dynamics that occurred when he was seven years old. He was left alone at home to care for his six year old sister, while his parents spent the day visiting with friends. As night fell, Dr. A’s anxiety grew to panic proportions. He knew his mother would be angry if he went to the neighbors for help. Instead he prepared a “meal” which consisted of a glass of beer and a bowl of cereal for his mother. He reasoned she would be hungry upon her return and pleased by his offering. He hoped in fact this meal would bring her home. He also fixed a bread and cheese sandwich for his sister but did not think to feed himself. Upon her arrival home, his mother made fun of his efforts saying it was all “so unnecessary.” He does not remember her offering any comfort.

Dr. A developed a competent exterior. The sensitivity he developed for others, however, left a yawning void inside: a wish to be taken care of by a nurturing, emotionally available and responsive parent. These desires could not be expressed directly as they were both too painful to acknowledge consciously and to do so would offend his mother. A confusion of tongues ensued where Dr. A knew his mother would withdraw in silence when faced with his emotional requests, yet would deny she was angry, hurt or even silent. According to Dr. A, she “went away” until he was “good enough” to bring her back. Her status, power and influence were restored while he was left confused, depleted and emotionally alone.

The maternal neglect, Dr. A repeatedly experienced, left him feeling diminished and uncertain about the legitimacy of his own emotional needs. He was also ambivalent about establishing an intimate connection with others. He sought their acceptance yet felt vulnerable and resentful that such acceptance felt dependent on his ability to anticipate, soothe, and please. Still, he felt compelled to provide the emotional supplies that others seemed to require for the maintenance of their self esteem.

Dr. A’s sense of self was predicated on a striking capacity to nurture, accept, understand, and emotionally attend to others. The price he paid was reflected in crippling bouts of panic when separated from familiar surroundings and people. If he did not know he was accepted by others, he felt adrift and alone until he could reestablish the emotional connection. Conflict would also threaten the connection, and was to be avoided as similar feelings of heightened anxiety would develop.

Such was the emotional state of Dr. A when he fell under the influence of a charismatic psychotherapist affiliated with the “Father Imago Training Program” (Dr. A. was not a candidate in this program but he did receive individual and group supervision.) Here at last was someone Dr. A did not have to look after or initially seek to appease. The group leader was cocky, articulate, charming and outspoken. He presented an aura of confidence and authority. While controversial and provocative he took a liking to Dr. A, which was flattering and most welcomed.

Finally, Dr. A felt accepted, honored and valued. Dr. A helped to establish supervision groups for this training center. His reputation grew and he was offered the gratitude and admiration of valued colleagues for his ability to make such training available to them. This heady mixture of professional respect and regard, when coupled with the earlier trauma of neglect, blinded Dr. A to the insidious effects of self serving charismatic leadership. Only over time did he come to see and understand that his supervisor required the same kind of handling he was so conflicted about providing.

Dr. A came to realize that he could not question or challenge outside narrowly defined parameters without facing a stinging backlash. Painfully, he understood this leader needed non dissident followers, good boys and girls, to maintain a sense of himself as effective, competent, and worthwhile. This could not be spoken or discussed due to a second confusion of tongues. Attempts by Dr. A to differentiate or disagree were greeted with charges of narcissism, weakness, or disloyalty. Such charges had a familiar maternal ring: “After all I have done for you, you do this to me. You’re so ungrateful and selfish.”

Dr. A related a particularly compelling example of this confusion which occurred in a group supervisory session. Dr. A was an elected officer in a state psychotherapy society. This was a position held previously by some senior members of the training center including Dr. A’s supervisor. In a dispute with the national organization, all of these former officers adopted a uniform position which Dr. A thought was unduly critical and combative. He was the only one to refuse to sign a letter composed by the training center faculty. In a supervisory session, Dr. A was attacked by his supervisor, who thought Dr. A was disloyal and narcissistic for refusing to sign the letter. He was told by his supervisor that he should write him a “blank check” for all he had done to get Dr. A elected. When Dr. A responded that he couldn’t sign such a letter without compromising his own integrity he was criticized for thinking he was “better” than the faculty. The supervisor went on to state he was hurt as he expected Dr. A to agree with any position the supervisor would take, implying he knew what was best for Dr. A’s professional and emotional well being. This experience left Dr. A feeling embarrassed and alone as none of his colleagues at the group session spoke on his behalf. Dr. A did not, however, change his decision.

Discussion

Theoretically then, Dr. A was abused and traumatized by the mother he was so dependent upon as a child. She did not take responsibility for, and denied that she had any difficulties to deal with, when she was actually neglectful of him. Despite his attempts to communicate his distress, Dr. A’s mother remained unavailable and narcissistically self involved. The confusion of tongues occurred as she was abandoning him emotionally, while blaming him for neglecting her by being selfish and engaging in age appropriate developmental activities. Her focus and subsequent motivation was to make sure she was taken care of, seemingly never aware of the maternal requirement to take care of her child. It is likely she was angry that he was a child and ultimately inadequate to fulfill her emotional needs. This emotionally detached and schizoid mother seems to have experienced dissociative states, which speaks of her own traumatic childhood.

Dr. A did not receive the maternal “protective shield” (Kahn, 1963) he needed as a child, for which he blamed himself. He was left feeling anxious and confused about what he could expect from others. Seeking reassurance, comfort and a sense of security he was attracted to the charismatic supervisor who both appeared and offered to provide the emotional supplies he so needed. In a disturbing retraumatization, this supervisor was interested in Dr. A only to meet his own needs for power, status, and control. He was to serve as a regulator to this supervisor’s self esteem.

Dr. A did not receive sufficient empathic attunement as a child or later as an adult supervisee. He grew to distrust his own experience of neglect. This led to a denial/disassociative state to cope with cumulative trauma. The essential function of this disassociative process was to maintain the illusion of nurturance so powerfully stated by the supervisor that what was being done to Dr. A was for his own good. The aggression of the supervisor was described as affection, in the form of fathering, where Dr. A had to disavow his own experience of humiliation and shame to maintain a longed for connection. This connection was mutual. Dr. A needed to put his trust in the supervisor as omniscient and therefore capable of offering some measure of certainty so he could feel relief from the overwhelming anxiety he had been experiencing (Brothers 2000, 2002). For his part, the supervisor needed Dr. A to offer, by idealization and mirroring, a reflection of his competency and worth. This in turn provided the narcissistic supplies required to reduce the supervisor’s own anxiety and uncertainty.

References

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Footnotes:

¹ - Raubolt, R. R. (2004). Charismatic leadership as a confusion of tongues: Trauma and retraumatization. Journal of Trauma Practice, 3 (1).