The Beatles (L-R George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Star and Paul McCartney)
Warning: this post contains descriptions of trauma and abuse
In the introduction to this blog I said that I am choosing the icons I will write about specifically because of their earned iconic fame. Whether this success reflected narcissistic strategies or not is another question, but theory and research evidence suggest that this will often be the case1,2. I have defined narcissism as the use of fame, performance and other strategies specifically to create distance from emotional experiences that have been unsafe and intolerable.
In part A, I used some of the events and relationships in John Lennon’s early life to illustrate how his childhood was defined by unsafe emotional vulnerability, loss and condemnation. We now look for illustrations of John’s strategies for managing this trauma. If they were narcissistic, then the map of narcissism predicts a reliance on performance and idealisation, shaming or condemnation, and emotional distance or intellectual preoccupation.
Escape strategies: Performance, idealisation and persona
John Lennon has been described by some as “the world’s greatest songwriter”3. As the founder of rock and roll group, The Beatles his song writing partnership with Paul McCartney has become legendary. They won ten Grammy Awards and to date have sold over a billion records. Early singles included ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, ‘She Loves You’ and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’’. The Beatles later experimented in the studio with producer George Martin – being credited by some with starting the psychedelic movement in the 1970s. Later influential singles included ‘Let it Be’, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.
Is there evidence though, in Lennon’s early life, that performance, persona and self-idealisation were not just in-born characteristics that he would inevitably develop? Were these instead roles and strategies nurtured as routes of escape - from traumatic experiences that John was compelled to be far away from?
Performance and charisma were demonstrated by both of John’s biological parents. His father Alf was a “show-off”4 compelled to dance and sing at the best and worst of times, having learned intently from his own father – a one time travelling minstrel. John experienced Alf, a ship’s steward, as a distant figure through postcards that painted a glamourous picture of a life centred around entertaining. It seems that Alf performed for his son a lot during the brief time they spent together – perhaps even as a way for Alf to deal with his own feelings about being an absent father.
The dreamy Julia too, liked to perform, and would sing and play ukulele and harmonica for John. And like Alf, perhaps this she could give – when other things she could not. How did this affect the way that she sang and played to him? I think the experiences the young boy had of performance – with both his real parents – were both intense and precious. Julia bought John his first guitar, his first Teddy Boy shirt and danced at his first gigs, just as the reliable Mimi continued her condemnation of the feelings and desires of the young boy’s mind.
Whilst it is easy to contrast these two mothers of John Lennon, a focus on performance and charisma and a focus on keeping up appearances do share something. One of the few things the three parent figures had in common was their focus, at the expense of the internal world of John, on the external – the visible and the audible. A teacher at Liverpool College of Art, observed that “John was a fish out of water and his way of coping was to be dismissive of the whole process – he needed a ‘front’ to achieve this”3.
[John] “wanted to stand out. He needed an audience, and he always got an audience because he shocked… I think the fact is that he didn’t want people to see his weakness” (Cynthia Lennon)3
A ‘front’ had started to develop. There was no room for the respectable middle-class accent that Mimi had drummed into John. His adult Liverpool accent was fake – another part of the persona. When the ‘Fab Four’became symbolic of a 1960s emergence of the ‘break-free working-class youth’, John became increasingly stressed about being found out as a “plastic scouser”3. But this is exactly what he was called by the director of the first Beatles film, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.
When I go back now, to the film A Hard Day’s Night (below), I can see in 1964 this non-vulnerable persona, and Lennon’s restless, dismissive, intellectual mind, in a way that I could not as a child.
Escape strategies: Judgment, shaming and attack
If being judged and humiliated becomes intolerable in the very smallest of doses, the furthest we can get from this danger is to become ourselves the judge. It is in some ways the perfect relief.
By the age of five, soon after he was taken in by Mimi, John was displaying “belligerent and hurtful behaviour”3 to the point of being expelled from school. John’s first notable creativity was writing his own magazine, ‘The Daily Howl’. John filled pages with distorted and mocking sketches of “cripples” and “cretins” who were named pupils and teachers3. With an example in Mimi, he was drawn to finding the weakness in others from a seat of judgment.
When John was 17, Julia was tragically killed by a car driven by an off-duty police officer. From this moment, one biographer notes, “any particular ‘weak or different’ groups were fair game for the supercharged bitterness.”3 It seems that as John’s vulnerability increased - in the face of compounded and unexpected losses – his strategy of putting down others and distancing from his own vulnerability increased. This was, for the moment, his only escape.
John (right) with Stuart Sutcliffe
Founding Beatles member Stuart Sutcliffe was a hugely important older brother figure to John, in private, after his mother died. But in public, John would go out of his way to ridicule Stuart3. His dependence - his vulnerability – had to be hidden. As The Beatles became successful, manager Brian Epstein was singled out for John’s attacks. On one occasion in a lift, Brian casually said he was looking for title ideas for his autobiography. John came back with, “Queer Jew”3. After John and Brian grew closer during a 12-day trip to Barcelona, John came back sounding even more antisemitic and homophobic towards Brian. John’s mood swings and judgmental rants were at times difficult for the band to tolerate. But The Beatles were John’s band. And the others said little to challenge his cruelty.
The inner critic
One aspect of John’s reliance on this strategy of judgment and criticism may have become a strength - a magical ingredient perhaps - in the prolific song writing partnership that developed with Paul McCartney. This un-compassionate, scrutinising critique within John must have enhanced their craft. One biographer concludes that, “though often brutal, this honesty was key to the development of their signwriting skills”3 Perhaps this symptom of trauma was also a part of what we call ‘talent’.
By the time of the ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ album, John’s “bitterly critical”5 inner voice was becoming too powerful – condemning his own voice and ideas – and combining unhelpfully with hallucinogenic drugs. The strategy was backfiring. John was in a crisis - “going through murder”, he later said5. Paul took over as leader of The Beatles.
So, John might have developed a go-to strategy of taking up a critical, judgmental and attacking stance that became destructive and highly unlikable at times. The more humiliated, judged or needy he felt, the more he would need to take up these stances. It is difficult to reconcile the angry and bitter sounding boy, with the world-famous smiling singer songwriter John Lennon - screamed for by teenage girls in their thousands.
The Beatles in later years (John left)
Can the same childhood experiences provoke, in the same person, both violence and creative talent? Into the 1970s John, struggling with alcohol and drugs continued on occasion to have violent outbursts – sometimes being restrained by friends. He would never quite shake off his temper. In John’s life, whilst we find examples of performance, charisma and idealisation, as strategies for dealing with trauma, these strategies were at times used side by side with denigration, judgment and occasionally impulsive, physical attack.
Being violent and being critical both offer, in the moment, distance from vulnerability specifically. But physical violence is not an essential aspect of narcissism. Why? If our priority is to achieve admiration and distance from shame, there are many reasons to avoid it. Physical violence, attracting afterwards judgment and condemnation, can quickly backfire so that superiority and success gives way to shame, and condemnation. For this reason perhaps, narcissism is usually associated more with verbal attack: criticism, put downs or gaslighting, and less with the impulsivity of violent outbursts.
Whilst successful icons like John often maintain a lot of control over their strategies for living, John’s increasing reliance on drugs and alcohol – perhaps in part to maintain performance – would eat away at self-control. Eventually, John’s fragile self, behind the front, would be exposed to exactly the emotional experiences he was trying to find distance from.
A new John?
By 1970, married now to Yoko Ono and separated from The Beatles, John was trying to address his emotional and behavioural problems in therapy. Together, John and Yoko stopped using heroin. His first solo album opened with words speaking directly to his biological parents. It was personal and raw:
Mother (John Lennon)
Mother, you had me
But I never had you
I, I wanted you
You didn't want me
So, I
I just got to tell you
Goodbye
Goodbye
Father, you left me
But I never left you
I needed you
You didn't need me
So, I
I just got to tell you, mm
Goodbye
Goodbye
…Mama don't go
Daddy come home
Mama don't go
Daddy come home
Mama don't go
Daddy come home
Mama don't go
Daddy come home
If someone had helped John to accept a task of making friends with vulnerability and weakness, this was an example of him trying to do it. No intellectual gymnastics. No denigration or idealisation of another or himself. This is something like the opposite of narcissism. Change was beginning. The descriptions of this period make me think of a man who has identified what it might look like to live in an emotionally connected way with others – to try to reduce the side effects of using judgment, attack, idealisation and performance as ways of dealing with everything.
If narcissism is a restricted set of strategies and roles we take, these can, in theory, be swapped out or diversified, given time. Was John starting to do this? We might find a clue in the recording studio where John and Yoko were together recording John’s last album, ‘Double-fantasy.’ If we were to look at the photograph blue-tacked to the mixing desk, we would find the face of Sean, John’s five-year-old son. It was a reminder to finish in time each day to put the boy to bed. John was teaching Sean to swim on Saturdays. At last, perhaps, emotional dependence on the one hand, and performance on the other, could exist in the same room. And perhaps finally, together, in the mind of John Winston Lennon.
The brightest of hiding places
Time, tragically, was running out for John. On 8th December 1980, aged 40, whilst still in New York, John was tragically shot dead. The murderer was a lone perpetrator, Mark Chapman, who had gone from being a fan to one of those who would condemn him in a most final way.
The life of John Lennon illustrates I think two aspects of the map of narcissism (below). Looking at shaming, judgment and condemnation, we can see how John experienced this as a boy - on the ‘receiving end’ of something intolerable. At precisely those same moments, he experienced a parent figure using shaming and judgment as a strategy for managing themselves. We can see next how very early on John started to employ this strategy and move away from the painful end of this kind of interaction – to the powerful end.
Secondly, we can see in Julia and Alf perhaps two different ways of learning to perform as a strategy of escaping pain. With Julia, John perhaps found himself more in the admired/idealised role – as her special boy – dressed up and taught to play ukulele. With Alf, he perhaps found himself more in the admiring/ idealising role. The effects of the combination of these experiences - in such precious moments, I think, is etched in pop history.
The map of narcissism6*
The map of narcissism6 points to emotional trauma as a powerful driving force behind much of what John Lennon achieved. John had determinedly sought fame, idealisation, the spotlight, the camera. But for John’s vulnerability itself, the camera and spotlight was I think a hiding place. In the last years of his life, it seems that John started to take on what must have been an immense task - of shunning this - the brightest of hiding places.
References
1. Diamond, D., Yeomans, F.E., Stern, B.L. & Kernberg, O.F. (2022) Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference Focussed Therapy. Guildford
2. Young, S.M. & Pinsky, D. (2006). Narcissism and Celebrity. Journal of Research in Personality, 40(5), 463-471.
3. Kenny, F. (2020). Understanding John Lennon. Shepheard-Walwyn.
4. Norman, P. (2009) John Lennon: The Life. Ecco.
5. Miles, B. (2002). The Beatles: A diary. Omnibus Press.
6. Ryle, A. & Kerr, I.B. (2002). Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Wiley.
*Ryle did not apply this approach only to narcissism. If this mapping approach has been used in your own therapy, this does not mean that you have narcissistic difficulties.