The Riddle of Barack Obama: A Psychobiography (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780313385872)

An internationally noted clinical psychologist offers readers the first psychological biography of Barack Obama.

The Riddle of Barack Obama: A Psychobiography is the first complete psychological biography of President Barack Obama written by a professional clinical psychologist. Covering Obama's life to date, as well as the lives of his parents, grandparents, and other ancestors, this fascinating volume illuminates the personal, professional, political, emotional, intellectual, and creative aspects of Obama's personality, as well as the motives--conscious and unconscious--for his beliefs and actions.

Dr. Avner Falk draws on hundreds of biographies, newspaper and magazine articles, interviews, investigative reports, and more, using psychoanalytic models developed by Sigmund Freud, Donald Winnicott, Peter Blos, Heinz Kohut, and Schiffer to probe Obama's psychological development. Examining every facet of the president's biography, he delves into his earliest feelings of abandonment and helplessness, his inner conflicts, his protective relationship with his mother, his ambivalent identification with his father, and his quest for identity. Perhaps most intriguingly, Dr. Falk explores the psychological origins of Obama's "fierce ambitions" and the ingredients of his charisma.

Author: Avner Falk
ISBN-10: 0313385874
ISBN-13: 9780313385872
Publisher: Praeger
Language: English
Published: 08/03/2010
Pages: 360
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.55lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.40d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2010 pg. 71