Psychiatric Dangers in Running for Political Office

PSYCHIATRIC DANGERS IN RUNNING FOR POLITICAL OFFICE WILLIAM S. APPLETON, M.D.* The American people assume that if their politicians are good family men they will also serve compassionately. Candidates, therefore , try to impress the electorate with evidence of kindness to their wives, children, and animals. But campaigning or holding office makes ideal homelife all but impossible. At the same time that the office seeker tries to create the image of warm private life, he is straining and perhaps even destroying it. Projecting warmth effectively requires so much time away from home that the man who appears most family-minded to the public may in fact be least. This difficulty in evaluating the human qualities and trustworthiness of potential office holders can lead the electorate to bad errors and great disappointment in the system. Candidates thought to be peaceful can turn out to be the most warlike. This is a study of the psychological phenomena occurring when an individual campaigns for high political office. Better understanding of the changes undergone by him and by his family can lead to more sound evaluation of the public figure and his capacity for good and evil; it can also permit the candidate to be better prepared psychologically for the ordeal. The initial observations recorded below were made during an actual election campaign rather than in a psychiatric office. The candidate and his family were studied, and only afterward were the findings supplemented by clinical data derived from several mildly depressed but otherwise normal politicians and their families. The politician and the stage actor have much in common; months of rehearsing (campaigning) so preoccupying as to be exhilarating, a day of reckoning (election day, opening night) and a small but rea- * Psychiatrist, Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 74 Fenwood Road, Boston, Massachusetts 02115. 188 I William S. Appleton · Emotional Hazards in Campaigning sonable chance for a long and happy run thereafter. While actors are half expected to live and breathe the theater, often with resultant broken marriages and messed-up children, the public demands model homelife from its political figures. Acting and campaigning are risky professions in which the chances for success are small and the strain on the private life great. But even if the great success never comes, many try over and over, addicted to the greasepaint and the crowd, to the sense of overwhelming involvement . Actors are self-conscious and delight in talking about what show business means to them, the company of other actors and theater people and the tradition. Politicians are more unconscious of enjoying their campaigns, are not aware of emotional needs fulfilled by their political associates, do not acknowledge to themselves the excitement of building an organization of which they are the center. An actor is encouraged to retain his private self, especially in today's psychological theater, while the politician must quietly change from private to political man. This transition makes him even less introspective and thus less aware of the strains on his personal life. Society expects him to remember the "little woman" he started out with who is the mother of his children, but forgives and even enjoys a middleaged entertainer's change to a younger, prettier model. The candidate runs the unfortunate risk of being left with a broken family and no political victory. The change from private to political man can alienate wife, children , friends, colleagues, and, once the transformation has occurred, even oneself. Becoming a candidate requires giving up job and income unless one is already in politics, independently wealthy, successfully retired, or on approved leave from a well-established career. Entering the race cold, poor, and scared, the candidate must under these pressures expose himself to public scrutiny. With normal family life disrupted, wives ignored, children not seen, habitual patterns of eating, dressing, and sleeping altered, the candidate enters a state of psychological disequilibrium. Elaborate procedures are established to cope with his resultant distress. Some of these are constructive, others politically wasteful, although they serve as anxiety-relieving defense mechanisms. Political Family A political "family" of campaign manager, staff, advisors, and volunteers is established, an organization absolutely necessary to win Perspectives in...