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Megalomania is a descriptive term for people with an obsession for power and wealth, and often omnipotence.[1] Megalomaniacs in history include Genghis Khan, and Napoleon Bonaparte.[2]
Megalomania can also refer to a mental state characterized by an inflated sense of one’s importance, power, or capabilities[3] or in extreme cases, having delusions of being a person of great significance[4] such as is seen in cases of schizophrenia.[3].
Etymology
[edit]Megalomania is derived from the Greek words "μεγαλο": megalo-, meaning great, and "μανία": mania, meaning madness.[5] The first attested use of the word "megalomania" in English is in 1890 as a translation of the French word "mégalomanie".[6]
Examples of megalomania in history
[edit]Megalomaniacal leaders have plagued society for millenia. The attainment of absolute power and nothing standing between a leader’s delusional whims and seeing them carried them out has lead to all sorts of bizarre outcomes.[7]
Muammar Gaddafi
[edit]Gaddafi formed a company of 30 women to be his bodyguards; the Amazonian guard. Gaddafi sought their protection (one died in service), oaths of virginity, and that they dress in camouflage uniforms with full make-up and elaborate hair styling. The women were often raped by the dictator and then passed on to one of his sons and eventually to high-ranking officials before being let go.”[8] Gaddafi was nicknamed "the mad dog of the Middle East" and "the crazy Libyan" by prominent world leaders. However, in country, Gaddafi eliminated even mild critics through public trials and executions.[9]
Alexander the Great
[edit]After the peace surrender of Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Alexander the Great and his army celebrated with a lavish victory party. Late in the night as he and his men were mostly intoxicated, Thais, a woman at the party taunted Alexander to set the city on fire. On a whim he ordered the city burned to the ground.[10]
History of the term in psychology
[edit]Historically, the definition of megalomania has differed among leading experts at different times but is largely obsolete today.[11] The term does not appear in any of the 5 editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders originally published in 1952.
As a stage of normal child development
[edit]Sigmund Freud freely used the same term in a comparable way. Referring with respect to an adult neurotic to 'the omnipotence which he ascribed to his thoughts and feelings', Freud reckoned that 'this belief is a frank acknowledgement of a relic of the old megalomania of infancy'.[12] Similarly Freud concluded that 'we can detect an element of megalomania in most other forms of paranoic disorder. We are justified in assuming that this megalomania is essentially of an infantile nature and that, as development proceeds, it is sacrificed to social considerations'.[13] Freud saw megalomania as an obstacle to psychoanalysis. In the second half of the 20th century object relations theory, both in the States and among British Kleinians, set about 'rethinking megalomania... intent on transforming an obstacle... into a complex organization that linked object relations and defence mechanisms' in such a way as to offer new 'prospects for therapy'.[14]
Edmund Bergler, one of his early followers, considered that 'as Freud and Ferenczi have shown, the child lives in a sort of megalomania for a long period; he knows only one yardstick, and that is his own over-inflated ego....Megalomania, it must be understood, is normal in the very young child'.[15] Bergler was of the opinion that in later life 'the activity of gambling in itself unconsciously activates the megalomania and grandiosity of childhood, reverting to the "fiction of omnipotence".[16]
Heinz Kohut regarded 'the narcissistic patient's "megalomania"...as part of normal development.
As a pathology
[edit]Bertrand Russell defined it as:
"The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history."[17]
Kernberg viewed the "grandiose self" as pathological, as an instance of development gone away',[18] as did Herbert Rosenfeld and John Steiner.
Otto Fenichel states that, for those who react in later life to narcissistic hurt with denial, ' a regression to narcissism is also a regression to the primary narcissistic omnipotence which makes its reappearance in the form of megalomania'.[19]
Arguably, however, 'in addition to its pathological forms, megalomania is a mental behavior that can be used by any individual as a way of coping with distress linked to frustration, abandonment, loss, or disappearance of the object'[20] in everyday life. In this sense, we may see 'megalomania as an extreme form of manic defense...against the anxiety resulting from separation from the object'.[21]
Unfortunately, 'a person with megalomania may not be interested in self-reflection or personal change',[22] so the talking cures may be less effective than medication.
An additional complication with analysis is comprised by the transference: 'if the analyst has any tendencies toward megalomania or authoritarianism, the response of the patient to the analyst will strengthen them'.[23]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Megalomania". Cambridge Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
- ^ "Megalomania". Vocabulary.com. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
- ^ a b "Megalomania". American Psychological Association. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
- ^ "Megalomania". medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com. Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
- ^ "Megalomania". etymonline.com. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
- ^ Miller (ed), Robert; Dennison (ed), John (2015). An Outline of Psychiatry in Clinical Lectures: The Lectures of Carl Wernicke. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-18051-9.
{{cite book}}:|last1=has generic name (help) - ^ Rank, Scott. "History's Most Insane Rulers: From Emperor Caligula to Muammar Gaddafi". historyonthenet.com. History on the net. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
- ^ Flock, Elizabeth. "Gaddafi's female bodyguards say they were raped, abused by the Libyan leader". washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. Retrieved 29 August 2007.
- ^ MacFarquhar, Neil. "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, 1942-2011 An Erratic Leader, Brutal and Defiant to the End". nytimes.com. New York Times. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
- ^ Mark, Joshua J. "Persepolis". worldhistory.org. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
- ^ Hughes, p. 182
- ^ Sigmund Freud, Case Histories II (PFL 9) p. 113
- ^ Freud, p. 203
- ^ Judith M. Hughes, From Obstacle to Ally (2004) p. 175
- ^ Edmund Bergler, "The Psychology of Gambling", in J. Halliday/P. Fuller eds., The Psychology of Gambling (London 1974) p. 176 and p. 182
- ^ Robert M. Lindner, "The Psychodynamics of Gambling", in Halliday/Fuller eds., p. 220.
- ^ "The megalomaniac differs from the... at BrainyQuote". Brainyquote.com. 1970-02-02. Retrieved 2011-12-21.
- ^ Hughes, p. 149
- ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neorosis (London 1946) p. 420
- ^ "Marc Bonnet, "Megalomania"". Enotes.com. Retrieved 2011-12-21.
- ^ "Bonnet". Enotes.com. Retrieved 2011-12-21.
- ^ Weiner/Craighead, p. 977
- ^ J. Bensman/R. Lilienfeld, Craft and Consciousness (1991) p. 159
Further reading
[edit]- Lewis, Michael J. Ego, vanity & megalomania. (Frank Lloyd Wright & Lewis Mumford: Thirty Years of Correspondence) An article from: New Criterion (2002)
- Robbins, John. Ecclesiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church ISBN 0-940931-78-8 [1] (1999)
- Roberts, John Megalomania: Managers and Mergers (1987)
- Rose, Larken How to Be a Successful Tyrant : The Megalomaniac Manifesto (2005)
- Rosenfeid, Israel Freud's Megalomania: A Novel (2001)
- Scull, Andrew Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine (2007)
- Sleigh A Hitler: a study in megalomania Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 1966 Jun;11(3):218-9.
- Tretiack, Philippe Megalomania: Too Much is Never Enough (2008)
External links
[edit]Category:Social psychology Category:Narcissism Category:Historical and obsolete mental and behavioural disorders