This is a reprint of an interview with Dr. Steve from the Case Blog

With the resignation of Eliot Spitzer two weeks ago, I started to reflect on why someone who has climbed the mountain would self-destruct in such a public manner. I decided that a professional could provide more insight than the news pundits and commentators, so I turned to a friend, Dr. Steven Berglas, who I recalled had written a book in the late ‘80s on this behavior, The Success Syndrome. What follows below is an interview I conducted with him. At the end of the interview, there is a brief biography of Dr. Berglas and a list of several of his other books and articles. I trust that you will derive as much value from his insights as I do.

Jim Casella: When you wrote The Success Syndrome in the late ‘80s, what research or clinical studies had you done up to that point?

Dr. Steven Berglas: Prior to writing The Success Syndrome, my appointment at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital — the hospital featured in Girl Interrupted, A Beautiful Mind, and many other cultural icons — was as a Research Scientist. In my case that meant I had two five-year government grants to study the model of alcohol abuse I formulated for my Ph.D. dissertation. The model, called “self-handicapping alcohol abuse,” explains the appeal of alcohol to successful people who fear that they cannot live up to performances expectations derived from past successes. The model boils down to, “If I was successful but am now “under the influence” of alcohol, I can blame poor performances on Demon Rum and keep my self-esteem intact arguing, ‘as soon as I’m off the sauce I’ll perform like a star again.’ ”

Fortuitously, what happened because I was based at McLean Hospital (which at the time was the premier facility for the psychiatric are of VIPs) was that senior psychiatrists familiar with my research referred me a number of CEOs and other VIPs from Hollywood, government, and the world of sports who were not alcoholic but seemed to be “stressed by success.” Thus, while I was able to refine my self-handicapping model of alcohol abuse doing research as the resident “expert” on “successful people,” I broadened my understanding of why, irrespective of what symptoms they adopt, people stressed by success are responding to a common set of negative feelings.

JC: In the intervening 20 years, what, if anything, has changed?

SB: The biggest “change” that occurred since the publication of The Success Syndrome was in me: I realized that when I wrote the book I did not have an intimate knowledge of “life at the top.” I knew the conflicts of those who worked at “the top,” but I didn’t really have a sense of what their lives, particularly vis-à-vis colleagues and friends, was like. When you work intimately with people in situ, your empathic skills get honed in ways that are impossible to experience as a psychotherapist who must maintain an arm’s-length distance from clients. As a consultant and executive coach, roles that the publicity from The Success Syndrome enabled me to segue into, I acquired an intimate knowledge of the lives lived by those who suffered from success.

JC: Has the Internet made these self-destructive events, for example Eliot Spitzer’s, happen more in “real time”?

SB: I do not believe that the incidence and prevalence of self-destructive acts has increased owing to the role that the Internet now plays in the lives of Americans. I do, however, feel that our society is more intrusive in ways that can provoke those vulnerable to suffering The Success Syndrome to feel angered and defiant, feelings that often lead to The Success Syndrome emerging earlier in one’s life than it might otherwise have.

Any “force” militating against successful people feeling that they have 100% control over their life is a red flag to those who are successful. Because the Internet makes privacy less likely, many people vulnerable to suffering The Success Syndrome feel, “Damn the potential for detection; I’m free to do what I want…” This attitude was captured in a classic manner by the words Gary Hart, a prototypical victim of The Success Syndrome, used in response to a reporter from The New York Times one day prior to the end of his political career (which occurred when he was photographed on the boat Monkey Business with Donna Rice on his lap): “If you think I’m having an affair, put a tail on me.”

JC: Can interventions and therapy save someone before they self-destruct or do they need to do this first in order to be open to help?

SB: As every grandmother alive cautions; “An ounce of prevention is always better than a pound of cure.” That said, my entire executive coaching practice is based on “curing” The Success Syndrome. What I plan to do in the revision of this book is detail the steps organizations can take to provide “an ounce of prevention” for those vulnerable to The Success Syndrome before disaster strikes.

JC: When will your revision of The Success Syndrome be coming out? Most of us are truly perplexed by this fascinating and very complex syndrome and the behavior that you seem to understand and are able to explain very clearly.

SB: At the moment I am looking forward to having the book out by the Fall of 2008 if all goes well.