Based on his extraordinary autobiography, Born to Run, I offer some reflections on the psychology of Bruce Springsteen.  His life long struggle with depression was a result of chronic strains and traumas in his childhood home.  He responded to this emotional wasteland with a fierce determination to separate and an unusual ability to focus on his career.  In addition to getting help via psychotherapy and medication, Springsteen was ultimately healed by the love of his wife and children.  In his musical development, he was concerned always with community—the effects on people’s personal lives of injustices in that community, and his successful attempts to create community in his infamous live performances.  Since Bruce Springsteen has been my musical idol since 1969, I hope that I’ve done him justice.

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I present my work with a woman who was constantly suicidal for a year, frequently phoning me from the equivalent of “the ledge.”  I felt overwhelmed with guilt, worry, and responsibility. I eventually was able to understand what was going on and how to help her.  She was turning “passive into active” and testing me to see if I would be as traumatized by caring for a suicidal woman as she felt with a suicidal mother.   I passed her test by confronting what was going on in a way that helped her identify with the healthier parts of myself.

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I review three aspects of Trump’s psychology—First, his need to lie all the time in order to ward off humiliation, Second, his inability to separate his personal and public lives, and third, the ways that his need to denigrate women comes from his fear of them.  All three dimensions of his psyche are worsened by the pressure of Impeachment and the resulting threat of failure and humiliation.

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Sexual fetishes refer to situations in which someone is sexually aroused by either an inanimate object or by a part of someone’s body or personality.  They include such sexual interests as high heeled shoes, leather, and particular body parts as well as qualities like youth or independence. At the heart of fetishism is objectification which functions subliminally as a way of negating, counteracting, or disconfirming the repressive weight of feelings of guilt, worry, and responsibility that often inhibit sexual excitement.  You don’t have to worry or feel guilty about a “thing.”

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