The Riddle of Barack Obama

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.

Avner Falk is an internationally-known Israeli scholar, expert in the fields of psychohistory and political psychology. He trained as a clinical psychologist at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Washington University in St. Louis. He practiced psychotherapy for 25 years, during which he served as Senior Clinical Psychologist at several mental health centers, before becoming a fulltime independent scholar. He authored seven earlier books, including Anti-Semitism: A History and Psychology of Hatred (Praeger, 2008), Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Napoleon Against Himself: A Psychobiography.

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. "Gramps" and "Toot" 2. A Girl Named Stanley 3. A Paternal Grandfather Named "The Terror" 4. A Narcissistic and Self-Destructive Father 5. The Fatherless Child and His Unhappy Mother 6. A Stepfather from Indonesia 7. Protecting His Mother 8. Adolescence and the Quest for Identity 9. In His Father's Footsteps 10. Name Change and Identity Struggle 11. The Community as Family 12. Outdoing His Father 13. Michelle: Mentor, Lover, Wife, and Mother 14. Marriage: The New Family 15. Fatherhood and Politics 16. A Humiliating Defeat 17. Fierce Ambitions 18. The Audacity of Ambition 19. Abandoning Another "Bad Father" 20. Obama's Charisma 21. Repairing "Mother America" 22. A Happy Conclusion References Index