The God Complex
Ego, Power, and the Delusion of Being Above Humanity
Some men rise so far through brilliance, vision, or force of will — that they start to feel untouchable. Not just confident, but invulnerable. What begins as mastery slowly curdles into belief: that they’ve outgrown their own limits. That the rules no longer apply.
‘Psychoanalysis’ doesn’t call this arrogance. It sees it as a collapse, a fracture in how the ‘self’ relates to its ideals, its reflection, and its flaws.
The Ego Ideal: When Praise Becomes Identity
Freud described the ‘ego ideal’ as an internal compass, a vision of who we should be.
It drives ambition, discipline, and desire. But when a man’s achievements start to mirror that ideal too perfectly, and the world echoes it back in admiration, something shifts.
He no longer feels he’s growing into something.
He feels he is it‽
Praise becomes identity.
Doubt fades. Reflection gives way to conviction. And slowly, the mirror becomes the throne.
Lacan’s Mirror: When the Mask Takes Over
Lacan’s ‘Imaginary’ is the realm where identity is shaped by image, where the self first learns to exist through reflection.
We craft a version of ourselves for others to admire, then begin to believe it’s real.
For the man who ascends too high, this reflection becomes everything.
The private self, the one that doubts, fails, aches — is buried beneath the performance. The wider the gap between the image and the inner world, the tighter his grip on control becomes.
Eventually, reality is no longer tolerated. It’s rewritten to preserve the illusion.
Jung’s Shadow: The Darkness That Follows Glory
Carl Jung taught that what we repress doesn’t disappear, it waits.
The ‘shadow’ is everything we reject in ourselves: envy, aggression, shame. For most, it lingers quietly. But for the exalted man, it gathers force beneath the surface.
Here, Freud’s insight strikes with brutal clarity:
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
What is silenced through discipline or image doesn’t dissolve, it festers. And when life offers enough distance from consequence, admiration grants him immunity, or status makes him unassailable, the repressed returns not as reflection, but as eruption.
The more he’s praised, the more the shadow slips through, disguised as necessity.
What was once manipulation becomes “strategy.”
What was once cruelty becomes “vision.”
What was once ego becomes “genius.”
This is where sublimation becomes critical, not just as creativity, but as containment.
Psychoanalysis sees sublimation as the transformation of instinct into something culturally valuable. The artist creates. The leader inspires. The thinker builds systems of clarity and control.
Sublimation is often celebrated as strength, desire turned to beauty, instinct to vision.
But even beauty can become a dam.
And every dam, when strained long enough, eventually cracks.
What was once channelled begins to overflow. The feeling doesn’t vanish. It merely waited for permission.
And when that permission arrives, the mask shatters, revealing the very parts that were never dealt with.
When it breaks, it doesn’t break quietly.
It collapses with the weight of every buried doubt and unmet need. What rises isn’t just the shadow, it’s humiliation. The terror of being seen without the script. The silence that follows when power no longer protects you.
The Artist as God: When Creation Becomes a Claim
Among all domains, art may be the most fertile ground for the God Complex.
A writer who shapes worlds, a composer who stirs souls, a filmmaker who bends time, such feats feel close to the divine.
It begins as sublimation, yes. But when admiration becomes constant, the boundary between expression and identity dissolves.
The artist no longer makes the work.
He believes he is the work.
And when that happens, boundaries blur. Misconduct is reframed as eccentricity. Cruelty becomes “part of the process.” Ethics feel optional.
Those around him often feel it first: the exhaustion of walking on eggshells, the erasure of boundaries, the slow redefinition of loyalty as submission. The tragedy isn’t just who he becomes; but who he demands others become to stay close.
The art might still speak truth. But the artist stops listening to anyone else.
The Leader as Myth: Where Power Erases the Person
Power rewards performance. The more seamless the role, the more it protects the person behind it.
Winnicott described the ‘false self’ as a mask we construct to meet the world’s expectations. Freud called it splitting; a mind divided between what is shown and what is hidden.
For the leader, this becomes survival. But over time, the role consumes the man. He no longer carries power. He becomes it.
Criticism feels like betrayal.
Accountability feels beneath him.
Failure becomes inconceivable.
He’s no longer playing the part.
He believes it is who he is.
We Built the Pedestal
But the God Complex doesn’t grow in isolation. We help build it.
Lacan’s Symbolic, the world of language, structure, and expectation shows how society contributes to the illusion. We crave figures to believe in. We want visionaries, saviours, creators.
We project our longings onto them, and then praise them for embodying what we planted there.
We crown them, call them genious, wrap them in myth.
And then we act betrayed when they begin to believe it too.
Undoing the Illusion: What Psychoanalysis Offers
Psychoanalysis doesn’t just describe this delusion. It helps to dismantle it.
Free association, shadow work, and honest inquiry allow us to confront what we’ve disowned to reintegrate the very parts we once split off for survival.
At a collective level, we must learn to hold admiration without worship.
To honour great work without turning it into devotion.
To value leadership without turning it into a license.
Because when we sanctify people, we excuse their harm. And when harm is excused, it multiplies.
No One Outruns Their Humanity
Fun fact, ‘The God Complex’ is not reserved for the elite. It lives in all of us. In flashes of certainty. In moments of control. In the silent conviction that we’re right beyond question.
But power, the real power begins where that illusion ends.
True strength lies in remembering that we are still human, still breakable, still bound by longing, still stitched together by contradiction.
No brilliance, no vision, no legacy outruns that truth. And perhaps, the highest form of power is the one that chooses never to forget it.
“To remain human, even when you could pretend otherwise.”
#Psychoanalysis #Power #Leadership #Art #Writing #Ego #TheGodComplex #Psychology
Author's Note
This piece began with a quiet discomfort.
Initially, planned to share it within the community space where the fellow researchers contribute.
But realized it's more about an introspective issue: In a world quick to cancel, why do I separate creators from their creations‽
⁉️Questions I Couldn't Shake
An uncomfortable observable pattern where brilliant minds, thinkers, writers, artists, movie producers, leaders — acting as if they're above the rules.
Why does success sometimes blind us‽ When does ego turn into delusion‽
What unsettled me wasn't their success, it was the slow erosion of self-awareness that often followed it.
The questions returned that refused to settle:
What happens when someone starts believing their reflection more than their reality‽
When the work becomes permission‽
When control masquerades as vision‽
As a psychoanalytic enthusiast, here I tried to explore ‘The God Complex’ not to judge anyone, but to understand how we all get caught in the trap of admiration and power.
It's a reflection on human nature, from studios to bedrooms, or boardrooms.
— Tanzil
Have you seen ego take over in your world‽ I'd love to hear your perspective.