Conclusion

Abstract

My interest in charisma was strongly affected by an unusual experience which I had as a trainee in child psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic, London, in 1980–82. As part of my training, I worked in a series of nurseries and children’s homes in Oxford and London. For a short time, I worked simultaneously in two nurseries, both for children between 3–5. These nurseries were worlds apart: one mostly for children of single parents, run by the London Borough of Barnet, the other a private nursery in which almost all the children had both parents. In the borough nursery, I was needed, I would say desperately at times, by children who in many cases had no father. The children’s endless demands exhausted and distressed me, though I found the work rewarding. A short bus ride took me to the private nursery. There the children mostly played among themselves, leaving the staff to supervise in the background. In attempting to analyze the enormous difference between the two nurseries, I connected the demands of the single-parent children in the borough nursery with their need for parenting. Later, when I began to think seriously about the phenomenon of charismatic appeal, I concluded that in adult life these children might be especially vulnerable in time of crisis to charismatic relationships, as leaders or as followers. In contrast, the children in the private nursery had no comparable needs or demands.