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Housemates on the couch
We've all got opinions about the mental states of those mad enough to go into the 'Big Brother house'. But what's the professional diagnosis? Oliver James gives his expert analysis
14 January 2006
To this shrink, Celebrity Big Brother is not only packed with individuals manifesting psychiatric symptoms, it is itself a symptom of a sick society. Being preoccupied by appearances, possessions, money and fame - exhibited 24 hours a day in the CBB contestants - is a virus that has swept through Anglo-Saxon nations. Numerous studies show that affliction with this affluenza increases vulnerability to the depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder which are evident in the contestants.
The second-hand living which viewers experience through watching the programme is also visible in the psychology of most of the contestants. While they may claim they are participating in order to resuscitate or enhance their careers, the true reason in all cases must, at least to some degree, be lack of identity and a hunger for public attention.
In some cases, the identity confusion is expressed through physically altering their bodies. In others, it is purely psychological, but whatever the means, these are confected persons struggling to ingratiate themselves with the audience, searching for personae that will get them votes. As such, they only reflect the society they live in.
Of course, not all of us are equally afflicted by affluenza and to understand why the contestants are there, you have to consider their histories. The principal vaccine protecting us from infection is responsive and loving care in early childhood. Studies of the afflicted show that they're more likely to have had parents who made love conditional upon fitting in with their wishes.
In infancy, I'd contend that the majority of the contestants did not have their needs met at the point when they arose. Rather, their hunger or discomfort was defined according to an unresponsive carer's convenience, forcing them to look outwards for self-definition. It leaves them prone to the arrested development of a toddler, petulant or withdrawn at the slightest frustration, emotionally immature.
Since our primary sense of self is formed during infancy, they will have suffered what is called "premature ego development". They have a false self, are fragile, insecure entities, unaware of their fundamental biological needs.
Above all, fame is attractive to them because it confers identity. A significant proportion of the famous people I've interviewed experience a sense of anchoring if a stranger approaches them and asks: "Aren't you X off the TV?"
Of course they know their name. But so weak is their sense of self that their moment-to-moment experience of who they are, existentially, is so fragile that it tells them who to be. Being recognised in this way provides the recognition that was so sadly absent in their early years.
George Galloway, 51
Along with Rula Lenska, he seems the most to resemble a grown-up adult in this infantilised group. With so many enemies on all sides of the political spectrum (he ousted on-message New Labour MP Oona King at the last election), they have queued up to pour buckets of ordure over him for participating. He claims to be doing so in order to publicise his political views, but as a seasoned public figure, he must have known that Channel 4 would hardly permit him to use CBB as a husting. His narcissism (a symptom of which, according to DSM-IV, the psychiatric bible, is "a grandiose sense of self-importance") is legendary, and a more likely motive is that he will do almost anything to stay in the public eye, alongside an authentic desire to expose government dishonesty regarding the Iraq war.
Faria Alam, 39
She claims: "I'm not craving the limelight." However, she also says: "I've got a hell of a lot riding on this. It might make me incredibly famous but it might take me back to where I am now, which would be devastating." Watching her sing the praises of her fine skin quality on the show while also claiming that she does not care at all about her age, she gives the impression of a highly manipulative person. She is very preoccupied with people-pleasing, yet strongly self-serving.
Jodie Marsh, 27
As well as showing many signs of histrionic personality disorder (DSM-IV: "interaction with others is often characterised by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behaviour"), she suffers from a clinging pattern of attachment. Such people felt abandoned by carers in early childhood and crave love. They are also prone to being bullied, whether as children in the playground or in their choice of partners in later life. In accord with this, she has rapidly become the dustbin for the CBB group's aggression. In a highly publicised spat with Barrymore and Pete Burns, they admonished her for childishly complaining at not being allowed to smoke or drink alcohol and for making a "sacrifice on the altar of public opinion". Eventually she flounced off in tears with the words: "I may as well kill myself because I've nothing to live for" (in accord with the histrionic diagnosis, symptom six: "Shows self-dramatisation, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion")
Preston Samuel, 24
Seemingly level-headed yoof. Presumably the producers included him as male eye-candy for the millions of younger viewers.
Pete Burns, 46
He seems as profoundly disturbed as Barrymore. To begin with, he was aggressive and flamboyant, but has quietened down to such an extent that the self-appointed show therapist, Rula Lenska, has decided that beneath the hard exterior there lies a vulnerable, scared person. This may be true, but he also inhabits a very confused inner world as well.
Michael Barrymore, 53
For many years, it has been clear that Barrymore has a personality disorder - febrile mood shifts, a need to be the centre of attention, a weak sense of self and love of assuming personae. From his first day on CBB, he has displayed vulnerability and fragility, breaking down in tears only three hours after arrival. Weeping in the Diary Room, he told BB: "I'm very emotional. Half of me is telling me to get up and get out and the other half is telling me to stay because of all the **** I've been dealing with. I'm struggling to humorise. I'm not unhappy at all, I'm crying tears of happiness." His behaviour has been consistently eccentric, from gouging out the eyes of the Queen's portrait to crazily telling viewers to do something to their screens which he will imitate, to babbling about creating a pen out of a cactus prickle. Some commentators have regarded this as a performance but it is nothing of the kind.
He speaks in muttered asides, barely audible, and his mind seems to ramble. Watching the live feed this morning, he came up to the dining table and said: "This chair is unwinding," gesturing that he could fall off if it broke. You do not have to be Sigmund Freud to interpret this as the existential unwinding he experiences all the time as he wanders aimlessly, babbling his schizoid utterances. I feel for him, that his manifest emotional disturbance is being used as entertainment by the producers. He probably suffers from schizotypal personality disorder. (DSM-IV: "Odd thinking and speech - vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, overelaborate, or stereotyped.")
When I interviewed Tony Blackburn, long before his venture into reality TV, he told me he only felt real when performing the role of Blackburn the Disc Jockey, and it is very likely the same for Barrymore. He feels at his most authentic when acting as if he is Barrymore - what psychoanalysts call an As If Personality.
Traci Bingham, 37
Describes herself as an exhibitionist and a flirt. As such she is giving Jodie Marsh a run for her money in the sexually provocative stakes, but without the histrionics. An unquestioning victim of Affluenza, she is what Erich Fromm described as a Marketing Character, a person who perceives herself as a commodity, one that in this case has presumably been purchased for several tens of thousands of pounds.
Maggot, 23
Least exhibitionistic of the inmates, only there for the beer (oh yes, and the money and fame). As a role model for our young men (along with Preston), he hardly encourages Blair's respect agenda, any more than he seems likely to join Galloway's Respect party.
Rula Lenska, 57
In clubbing together with Galloway for grown-up chats, and in providing a therapy-informed commentary on the "children", she probably deceives herself as to her own maturity. She claims to be there because she "likes a challenge". The truth is more likely to be an ageing luvvy's narcissistic longing for public attention.
Dennis Rodman, 44
Also a Marketing Character and sexually exhibitionistic, he has presumably persuaded himself that he's just a regular guy from a low-income home who does good works. While it may be true that he is less worrying than OJ Simpson, he is no less narcissistic and atavistically self-obsessed for that. Alas, neither our government or broadcasters seem to have any concern about promoting the values of the likes of Traci and him.
Chantelle Houghton, 22
She lists her loves as shopping, lip-gloss and all things pink and revels in looking like Paris Hilton (the model, not the building): another delicacy from the American Marketing Character hypermarket that our country is becoming.
The psychologist Oliver James is the author of 'Britain on the Couch' and 'They ******* You Up - How to Survive Family Life'. His new book, 'Affluenza Vaccines - How to be Middle Class, Successful and Sane', will be published in September
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Source: The Independent
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14-01-2006, 09:15 AM
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