A psychoanalytic conceptualization of destructive cult leader’s psychopathology drawing on the case study of the character of novel «Reef» by Alexey Polyarinov

Psychoanalysis of literature

Abstract

Leaders of destructive cults (sects), e.g. Charles Manson from the “Family” cult or Jim Jones from the “Peoples temple” cult, attract a lot of attention from the general audience and mass information medias, treating the stories of cults and their leaders as a sort of real thriller or horror films, as well as from psychologists and psychiatrists trying to analyze personalities of cult leaders, to conceptualize and to identify the roots of respective psychopathologies.This article attempts to examine the possibility to conceptualize the destructive cult leader’s psychopathology through the lens of psychoanalytic theory with the use of concepts developed by Erich Fromm, Herbert Rosenfeld, Andre Green, Otto Kernberg, D.W. Winnicott, Heinz Kohut, Anna Freud and other well-known psychoanalysts, as well as observations and findings developed by cults researchers and therapists working with cults victims, such as Daniel Show, Steven Hassan, Philip Zimbardo, Mila Goldner- Vukov, L.J. Moore, and others. The possibility to apply psychoanalytic views to conceptualize the cult leader’s psychopathology is illustrated by the analysis of personality of Yuriy Garin - character of the novel «Reef» by contemporary Russian writer Alexey Polyarinov. This article may be of interest for psychologists conducting research on the topic of cults, psychotherapists involved in the rehabilitation of cults’ victims, students of psychological faculties or psychoanalytic institutes, as well as for general audience interested in the topic of cults.