Psychoanalytic Assessments of Character and PerformanceBut establishing that a particular event did take place is only the first
step. Who is telling the story? Were they there, or are they repeat-
ing what they have heard elsewhere? What is the relationship of the
person telling the story to the person about whom it is told? What is
his or her motivation for telling the story?
The next question is how representative the incident is and of
what? Consider in this regard the various stories regarding President
Clinton's anger. Woodward reports a number of instances of Clin-
ton's anger (1994, 33, 54, 133, 255, 278). So does Drew (1994, 96,
218). When one totals up these incidents and adds to them other
public displays of temper, including the outburst of rage and indig-
nation during the Rolling Stone interview (Wenner and Greider
1993) that took place during the campaign, it seems clear that this
is an element in Clinton's psychology that warrants attention and
explanation. The density of the anecdotal material supports the view
that there is indeed something present to be explained. The question
then arises as to whether the element is consequential, and if so what
does it mean?
The Origins and Development of a President's Psychology
Psychoanalytic theory is synonymous in many people's minds with a
focus on the childhood and adolescent origins of adult behavior. To
some degree, this perception is both accurate and, from the stand-
point of psychoanalytic theory, important. How else would we know
how adult psychology has developed and why?
Less appreciated is the fact that, strictly speaking, understanding
why a person acts as he or she does is different than, and not necessar-
ily dependent on, understanding how that set of characteristics devel-
oped. As Alexander George (1971, 85) points out in his classic essay:
In making use of available knowledge of the compulsive per-
sonality for purposes of political biography, an answer to the
causal question is not essential. What creates a given personal
dynamism, the dynamism itself—which is what interests the
biographer most—can be fairly readily identified in accounts of
the subject's behavior.
Generally, the psychoanalytically oriented analyst trying to con-
struct an understanding of a president's early years must rely on sev-