Yet our house was full of plaques and honorary degrees and awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, that had failed to secure for him the true sense of accomplishment for which he longed. This is the model of a truly intimate interpersonal relationship, including, of course, the analytic relationship. You are acceptable for who you are. I think my father suffered terribly because he could not in his intimate relationships be what his image suggested he would be. More than once he expressed the hope that we his children would feel nourished by his success, because he knew that his career had received most of his attention.
Fame does, of course, have a powerful impact on the personal relationships of the celebrity.
But it is not so easy to distinguish the effects of fame from the effects of the narcissistic disturbance that motivated the achievement of that fame. In the interaction when I surprised both of us by bursting into tears, he was unable to comfort me, and that was painful for both of us. We were both drawn to the illusion of specialness that his public image seemed to offer us. As a result, the experience of disconnection left us both feeling more deeply flawed and ashamed. When we were in public, we often tried to act as if we felt the special connection that we knew his image prescribed.