Hillary Clinton and the Negative Mother Complex
May 1st, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
There has been much commentary in media about whether Hillary Clinton has been hit with more unbalanced attacks as a result of her gender.
It seems a significant amount of what is repeatedly written or said about her negatively, is not an effort to evaluate or weigh, but rather carries a tone of diatribe … as though the speaker/ writer feels they have been harmed by her personally in some way and is lashing out in return.
There have been irrational slimes written about her person, voice, laugh, emotive configuration, authenticity, family loyalties, humanity.
The cause of one-sided opprobrium in this case might be fueled by some kind of negative mother complex in the culture, let alone in some individuals.
In psychoanalysis, a negative complex is defined as a sudden surge in the psyche that causes cessation of full ability to see all sides of something or someone, and to instead, insist on a one-sided, unbalanced, or simple-minded viewpoint about the object, or person or idea in question… even with much evidence to the contrary.
The negative mother complex is as above, but also is understood as a sudden negative reaction to a woman in particular– that reminds a person in some way, consciously but more often unconsciously, of negative experiences with one’s earliest mother figure.
A person caught in a negative mother complex projects that the stranger or known woman before them now, is somehow like ‘the old mother’… and lashes out in the present as they might have wished to long ago when they were smaller and powerless against, say, an unfair or self-centered mother, or an ineffectual, helpless mother.
In a woman, her tone of voice especially, but also a certain kind of unassailability, or a form of confidence or sureness about oneself, certain physical features, certain fragrances, certain words, a certain look in the eyes, a certain slant to the mouth… can act as triggers, setting off the negative mother complex in a person.
The complex does not allow the person to perceive or react to the woman before them as human, just as they did not see the early mother figure as human, but rather as spiteful, selfish, imperious, or impervious to them… among others reactions.
Cultures can carry and react with negative complexes also, sometimes carrying
unconscious desire to punish anyone reminding them of an earlier time when ‘the people’ had not ‘enough’ respect or notice or nourishment from a governmental source they depended on…
Now, large groups in the culture jump at innocent leaders just because they carry some words or tones or features that somehow remind of the time the people were badly mistreated or mal-nurtured by the previous regime… and more so, reminding the people of the worst: their own powerlessness to change that dark time or intervene in it.
Without examination and conscious inquiry, the triggers reminiscent of past bad old times, are the catalyzing factors that cause projection of false attributes onto others.
The good side of being hypervigilant to leaders’ foibles, is that this is the psyche’s or the culture’s defense against being taken prisoner again, of being under an unjust person’s thumb again, against being made a fool of again.
The down side is that negative projection for hyper vigilance’s sake, may paint a public picture that looks nothing like the real and gifted person…ironically causing a culture to become a prisoner again anyway –of it’s own oldest wounds.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
