The Charismatic Personality

Dr Len Oakes




The idea that a single person can change the course of nations, peoples, and movements through the force of their own personality is something many may find fascinating and more than a little scary. How does such a thing happen? While much has been written about the lives of charismatic characters, scientific investigation of the phenomena is rare. In his latest book psychologist Len Oakes draws on a range of disciplines including theology, history, sociology and psychoanalysis to explore a personality so different from the general population that it is used by groups to solve problems that reason and tradition have failed to answer. With case studies and reviews of individuals such as Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, Adolf Hitler, Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Germaine Greer, Girolamo Savonarola, Mao Tse-tung and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Oakes argues that charismatic leadership is a creative, problem-solving strategy that is resorted to in extremis, and that the reason it so often disappoints is may be due to the magnitude of the problems it is called upon to address. However, when it is successful it is spectacularly so, and may give birth to a new civilisation or religion.

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About the Author

Len Oakes completed his doctorate in psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1992. His doctoral dissertation was titled A Psychology of Charisma: The Prophet. He has authored two books, Inside Centrepoint: The Story of a New Zealand Community (1986, Benton Ross), and Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities (1997, Syracuse University Press), as well as numerous articles. He has been a registered psychologist for 21 years, a therapist in general practice for 16 years, and was editor of the professional journal Psychotherapy in Australia for six years. Currently, he is in private practice as a psychologist in Melbourne, Australia.

Reviews

A valuable addition to the study of charisma, Len Oakes' profile of the charismatic personality is built up from psychological insights and detailed biographies of charismatic individuals. - Associate Professor John Potts, author of A History of Charisma.

A much-needed insightful and accessible exploration. Oakes is the right person to make the current controversies around charisma available to a broader audience. - André van der Braak, Ph.D., author of Enlightenment Blues: My Years with an American Guru

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Part One: Theory and Case Studies
  • The Varieties of Charismatic Experience
  • Winston Churchill: An Exemplar
  • The Psychoanalytic Perspective: Heinz Kohut
  • The Charismatic Intellectual: Sigmund Freud
  • Perspectives from Psychology and Psychiatry
  • The False Self of Adolf Hitler
  • The Rise of the Charismatic Leader
  • Decline or Fall?
  • Part Two: Applications
  • The Charismatic Relationship
  • The Charismatic Follower
  • A Survival Guide for Destructive Charisma
  • The Charismatic Movement: Max Weber
  • The Charismatic Woman: Germaine Greer
  • The Charismatic Alliance: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt
  • Cosmic Narcissism
  • Other Enabling Traits
  • Part Three: Conclusions
  • He was a monster but . . .
  • Appendix: Kernberg's Symptomatology
  • References