It’s hard to deny the power of one person when we look at the world today. So many cultures (or subcultures) are personified by the thoughts and ideas of one person. But where did those thoughts and ideas come from? And what loss might have affected the trajectory of these people’s lives?
As someone who spends a lot of time speaking with people facing loss and grief, I see the world through bluish-colored glasses. Often, I am looking at the story behind the story that led someone to where they are today.
If I’m being honest, I’m mildly obsessed with the origin stories of public figures and why they ended up the way they did. What I’ve been surprised by is how often there is a marked loss in their early years, which shapes their ideas. In turn, I can’t help but hold a serious fascination with how our culture has been permeated by these people’s losses and how they’ve, in turn, been lived out by these larger-than-life individuals.
Two people from the past that have intrigued me, in this way, are Sigmund Freud and Walt Disney. When I discovered their stories of loss, many of their professional outcomes made more sense.
Freud
As I began my deep dive into the theories of psychology, I was struck by the lack of connection to the spirit. From the outset of modern psychology, there was a drive to focus on what could be researched and measured. It was as if the spiritual dimension of the individual was shut out from the practice of psychology.
But it felt like there might be something more.
I was shocked to read an anecdote about Sigmund Freud, the “father of modern psychology,” which led me to wonder about how loss may have been a player in this division between modern psychology and our spiritual beings.
As many accounts of the story goes, in the aftermath of his own mother’s psychological breakdown, young Freud had a nanny who then became like a second mother. This Czech woman was a devout Catholic and reportedly took Freud to church regularly and instilled strict values in his very young life. In the midst of this, his nanny was reportedly fired for stealing. This left a maternal vacuum in Freud’s young life.
Freud himself, in personal analysis many years later, discovered repressed memories of this nanny and noticed the influence this early relationship had over him. Freud also lost his brother at a young age, suffered the loss of his daughter, and lost his father in his 40s.
One has to wonder how deeply some of these early losses influenced his later behaviors and ideas, especially those about the church. In some of his writings he spoke about religion (not just Christianity) as being an illusion, sometimes even a neurosis, sometimes even speaking of religion as an attempt to gain control.
I wonder what Freud would have nurtured in the world if he had a balanced and reverent view of both Judaism and Christianity. Would he have even become the figure that he eventually became? Was it his losses that catapulted him forward?
Disney
The second such person I find interesting in this respect is Walt Disney. As my little one started to get to the age where his contemporaries were watching all the Disney movies, I noticed a distinct sensitivity he had to the emotional pain and sadness of others in films. I rewatched a few of the Disney films before even considering showing them to him and noticed a disturbing theme: The loss of mothers and fathers of the young characters.
I wondered where this theme of loss originated from? Was it from the models of fairy tales since the Middle Ages? Was there something more?
Again, I was shocked to discover that in 1939, Walt Disney and his brother had purchased a home for their mother. She had complained about a smell and ultimately died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the home that they bought for her.
It’s also important to place Disney in the culture of loss from the Spanish influenza of 1918 and the immense losses of both WWI and WWII. Loss permeated the culture, and, even today, I have remarkably different conversations with people about grief who are over 80 and those 60 and below.
We can only speculate about the power of these two men in our culture. We can also see some positive outcomes, namely Freud’s focus on theories for early childhood trauma and Disney’s message of resilience for young people.
That said, these stories make me wonder about the effect of loss on my own life. As a single mom, it has been an arduous path to remain positive with my little one about his father. I made an early goal to help foster a good relationship between them. I was strict with myself that he would never hear a negative word about his father uttered from my lips.
It makes me wonder: How have the losses in my life affected my own behaviors and ideas?
What behaviors do I have blinders to that might influence others?
Now, I urge you to ask the same.