Charisma and attachment theory: a crossdisciplinary interpretation

The attachment theory of Bowlby and his followers has not previously been applied to the interpretation of charismatic phenomena in the bonding of large numbers of people with their leaders in crisis. This essay, which builds on the author's 'Surviving trauma: loss, literature and psychoanalysis', attempts to use attachment theory and sociological concepts such as homogamy, anomie, negative imprinting and de-individuation, as well as classical Freudian concepts such as transference and splitting of the ego, in interpreting the charismatic bond. It is argued that charismatic homogamy becomes viable at the point of intersection between the inner world of the charismatic leader and social and political reality. The bonding of the individual and the public may be based partly upon a symbolic link between public crisis and the charismatic's experience of trauma that has deeply scarred or even ended the affectional bonds in his family of orientation. This trauma, however, is a source of insight and power as well as of disability, for it has schooled him in crisis and given him the capacity to offer directional leadership. The charismatic and his society are bonded in crisis through a mutual attempt to break free of anomie and alienation, and a sense of powerlessness and despair.