{"id":10097,"date":"2026-10-03T07:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T07:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/?p=10097"},"modified":"2026-10-02T20:55:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:55:19","slug":"how-freud-might-psychoanalyze-fred-trump-obsessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-freud-might-psychoanalyze-fred-trump-obsessions\/","title":{"rendered":"How Freud Might Psychoanalyze Trump\u2019s Obsessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Why is U.S. President Donald J. Trump obsessed with putting his name on Kennedy Center building, pursuing the reflecting pool saga, installing a ballroom and underground complex, building the Triumphal Arch, and various other costly construction and renovation projects? When trying to explain people\u2019s behavior, emotions, and motivations, Sigmund Freud would suggest analyzing that person\u2019s relationship with their parents dating back to childhood.<\/p>\n

According to biographers, Trump\u2019s father, Fred Trump, maintained unyielding expectations for his sons, instilling a fiercely competitive worldview centered on financial success. In response to behavioral problems during Donald\u2019s teenage years, the elder Trump enrolled him in the New York Military Academy to enforce strict discipline.<\/p>\n

According to Academy of Management Scholar Jeffrey Sonnenfeld<\/a> of the Yale School of Management, who moderated the panel \u201cThe Framers of 1776 vs. The Nation\u2019s Leadership In 2026; Is the Vision Now Vivid or Blurred?<\/a>\u201d at the 2026 AOM Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, family members have characterized the relationship between father and the son as emotionally rigid, cold, or even callous, with the father pressuring the son and the latter struggling to outshine his older brother, Fred Trump Jr., to earn Fred Sr.\u2019s love. Sonnenfeld has coauthored the book Trump\u2019s Ten Commandments: Strategic Lessons from the Trump Leadership Toolbox<\/em><\/a> with Steven Tian, also of Yale.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis grandiosity is tied up with his goals of being known as a winner, being a successful president, and establishing a lasting legacy,\u201d Sonnenfeld said. \u201cThe psychoanalysts would have had a field day with this, that his older brother was the preferred child and carried the name Fred Jr., while Donald never managed to persuade his late father, Fred Sr., that he was better than his father thought he was\u2014or should be.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump could never convince his dad that he was worthy of being the well-loved favorite son, and he\u2019s haunted by this Oedipal type of battle with the shadow or the ghost of someone you can never truly show you\u2019ve equaled or beaten or made proud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs he gets older, he worries about creating lasting symbols, the way he puts his name on coins and gold shoes and a cryptocurrency and buildings and monuments and statues and legislative acts and things like that\u2014that\u2019s really astounding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sonnenfeld recalled the historical example of Alexander III of Macedonia, who claimed to be descended from characters featured in Homer\u2019s The Iliad<\/em> and The Odyssey<\/em> and had a propensity for naming cities after himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody called him \u2018Alexander the Great\u2019 until he called himself that and wound up creating a false link to Odysseus and Achilles and probably started to believe it himself\u2014and obviously he did name Alexandria, the city in Egypt, and many others, after himself, but it was nothing like this,\u201d he said. \u201cCaesar and all the other Roman emperors combined did not have as much grandiosity as Trump is showing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Why is U.S. President Donald J. Trump obsessed with putting his name on Kennedy Center building, pursuing the reflecting pool saga, installing a ballroom and underground complex, building the Triumphal Arch, and various other costly construction and renovation projects? 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Previously, he was a writer and the Finance Editor for Strategic Finance magazine and Management Accounting Quarterly, a scholarly journal, at the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Prior to that, he worked as a writer\/editor at The Financial Times, including daily FT sister publications Ignites and FundFire, as well as Crain Communications\u2019s InvestmentNews and Crain\u2019s Wealth, eFinancialCareers, and Arizent\u2019s Financial Planning, Re:Invent|Wealth, On Wall Street, Bank Investment Consultant, and Money Management Executive. He earned his bachelor\u2019s degree, Cum Laude, from the University of Colorado Boulder and his master\u2019s degree from New York University. You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"author_category":"1","first_name":"Daniel","last_name":"Butcher","user_url":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","job_title":"Managing Editor, AOM Today, Academy of Management","description":"Daniel Butcher is a writer and the Managing Editor of AOM Today at the Academy of Management (AOM). Previously, he was a writer and the Finance Editor for <i>Strategic Finance<\/i> magazine and <i>Management Accounting Quarterly<\/i>, a scholarly journal, at the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Prior to that, he worked as a writer\/editor at <i>The Financial Times,<\/i> including daily FT sister publications <i>Ignites<\/i> and <i>FundFire<\/i>, as well as Crain Communications\u2019s <i>InvestmentNews<\/i> and <i>Crain\u2019s Wealth<\/i>, eFinancialCareers, and Arizent\u2019s <i>Financial Planning, Re:Invent|Wealth, On Wall Street, Bank Investment Consultant<\/i>, and <i>Money Management Executive<\/i>. He earned his bachelor\u2019s degree, Cum Laude, from the University of Colorado Boulder and his master\u2019s degree from New York University. You can reach him at <a href=\"mailto:dbutcher@aom.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dbutcher@aom.org<\/a> or via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a>."}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-scaled.jpg",2560,1699,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-scaled.jpg",2560,1699,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-scaled.jpg",2560,1699,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-300x199.jpg",300,199,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-1024x679.jpg",800,530,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-1536x1019.jpg",1536,1019,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-2048x1359.jpg",2048,1359,true],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-600x398.jpg",600,398,true],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-350x450.jpg",350,450,true],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bronze-statue-Sigmund-Freud-sits-on-granite-bench-in-urban-park-sculpture-holding-cane-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/communicating\/\" rel=\"category tag\">COMMUNICATING<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/emotions\/\" rel=\"category tag\">EMOTIONS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/leadership\/\" rel=\"category tag\">LEADERSHIP<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/policy\/\" rel=\"category tag\">POLICY<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher Why is U.S. President Donald J. Trump obsessed with putting his name on Kennedy Center building, pursuing the reflecting pool saga, installing a ballroom and underground complex, building the Triumphal Arch, and various other costly construction and renovation projects? When trying to explain people\u2019s behavior, emotions, and motivations, Sigmund Freud would suggest…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10097"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10136,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10097\/revisions\/10136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10097"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=10097"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=10097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}