Ever heard of the Phaeton complex?
When I check out the biographical details of people who are successful in various sectors, I’m struck by how often their childhood is characterised by the absence, physically or emotionally, or one or both parents.
Apparently this phenomenon has a name: the Phaeton complex. As Wikipedia puts it:
“The Phaeton complex is a psychological condition described by Maryse Choisy as a “painful combination of thoughts and emotions caused by the absence, loss, coldness, or traumatizing behavior of one or both parents, resulting in frustration and aggression”.
The theory was devised by Lucille Iremonger, who in 1970 studied the 24 British prime ministers who held office from 1809 to 1940, and found that 62% of these men had lost one or both parents by age 15, compared to a national average of 10-15% in those times. Hugh Berrington expanded on the theory in 1974, finding sufferers of the Phaeton complex to be less sociable, flexible or tolerant, instead being ambitious, vain, sensitive, lonely and shy.
The name derives from the Greek myth of Phaeton, a child of the sun god, who demands to drive his father’s chariot and in doing so, falls to earth and scorches the Sahara Desert.”