For mega-rich heirs, the anxieties that drive ‘Succession’ are all too real
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Jeremy Strong as Kendall Roy in the HBO series, “Succession.”
“Succession” — the HBO show charting the relentless infighting, deceit and unhappiness across generations of the powerful Roy family — may be over. These challenges, however, remain very real for the ultrarich and their heirs, mental health professionals say.
There are obvious upsides to a life born into immense wealth, but the prospect of inheriting unimaginable sums can strain personal relationships, erode self-confidence and trap a person in a near-permanent state of dependence, say therapists and wealth consultants who work with the heirs of the ultrarich. Many of them recognized the characters portrayed in “Succession” from their therapy work.
“I always felt like I was at work, watching the show,” said Clay Cockrell, a psychotherapist who specializes in treating wealthy individuals and their families.
“Some of these children can have a lack of ambition,” he said — referring to real-life inheritors. “Why go to college? Why start a business? Why work hard? When all your financial needs are met, that leads to a deep-seated low self-esteem, low self-confidence because it’s never really been a struggle.”
Cockrell said he has seen that in the characters of Logan’s children in the series. “There’s a bravado that they project, and underneath there’s a lot of shallowness and fear,” he said.
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Paul Hokemeyer, a clinical psychologist who also treats ultrarich people, said he recognized how the second generation of an extremely wealthy family can become haunted by their inheritance rather than be empowered by it.
“They are constantly wondering if people like them for who they are at their core or for the trappings of wealth that adorn their lives,” he said in an email, commenting on wealth’s remarkable ability to isolate a person from those around them. “They feel guilty for having so much of what the world idolizes and while at the same time feeling so flawed, inadequate and unhappy.”
As well as seeding self-doubt and isolation, material wealth and the prospect of its inheritance infect almost every relationship in “Succession” (see: Tom and Shiv).
“Wealth is power,” Hokemeyer said, adding that when there is a wealth imbalance in relationships, there is an inherent power imbalance, too — something those who have inherited family money say reflects their own experience.
“One especially tricky element to inheriting wealth is how others might relate to us because of our wealth, which can be like a third party in all our relationships,” said Diana Chambers, who describes herself as a third-generation member of a onetime business family and now advises other families on managing their wealth and the emotional baggage that accompanies it. “We might find ourselves questioning the foundations of our friendships, struggling to decide how much to contribute to shared expenses, or caught in an undercurrent of envy directed at us.”
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Chambers suggests that members of the second and third generations of wealthy families develop a sense of independence and purpose before inheriting the family money. Or, as she says: “If we receive the inheritance before we’ve found traction on our unique path, it can mute our pursuit of otherwise intrinsically motivating goals.”
Mental health professionals who treat the ultrawealthy say their adult children can become trapped in a state of perpetual dependence on their parents well into adulthood, such as the Roys. And it never wanes, Hokemeyer said.
Those born into ordinary circumstances may be motivated by aspiration, but those born into immense wealth are liable to become haunted by a constant fear of losing their inheritance, he said. “Their physical safety, tribal identity and worthiness of love gets conflated to material validation,” Hokemeyer said. “In these families, money and the status and power inherent becomes the measure stick by which they gauge their worthiness as a person.”
“Experienced well-being” tends to increase with wealth, one study showed, but for adult children of the very rich, unhappiness and low self-esteem seem to accompany wealth, mental health professionals who work with them say. “It can come out as an impostor syndrome within themselves,” Cockrell said. “They project bravado, confidence, sometimes even cruelty to others so that no one can see that in actuality, they’re standing on clay feet, and can crumble at any moment.”
In other words: I see you, Roman Roy.
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Hokemeyer said the psychological differences between people who have earned their wealth and those who have inherited it are rooted in whether one’s sense of agency is located internally or externally, a concept known as the locus of control.
People who have inherited or married into wealth suffer from an external locus of control, Hokemeyer said, meaning that they perceive their life’s outcomes to be overwhelmingly shaped by circumstances beyond their own agency — which can erode one’s sense of self.
“When people become eclipsed by the sparkle of their wealth, they fail to develop a healthy and resilient self-concept,” he said. “They doubt their ability to contribute anything substantive in the world. They never know if the praise they receive for their efforts is based on merit or appeasement.”
Self-doubt plagues the second generation of the Roy family, who frequently struggled to hide their raw vulnerabilities from others. “You create this kind of protective shell, but underneath we’re all just little nudie turtles,” Tom Wambsgans says to hapless cousin Greg in Season 1, explaining a golden rule of the Roys.
“Succession” skillfully captures the elements of fury, self-doubt and intrafamily conflict that can characterize life for the ultrawealthy, those who work with them say.
“They’ve packed them into the single scenario of the Roy family,” said Nigel Nicholson, an organizational psychologist who specializes in conflicts within family-run businesses. The transition from the owner-founder generation to the second generation — as depicted by “Succession” — is the “classic scenario,” said Nicholson, a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. “There are two chief conflicts that need to be managed: One is the parent-child conflict and the other is sibling rivalry.”
Sibling rivalry is rooted in the psychology of the family ecosystem — characterized by the younger generation vying for the resources and attention of their parents — and, Nicholson says, intergenerational conflict is about parents doubting the competence of the children.
“The senior generation believes it knows what’s best for the next generation and the next generation believes it knows what’s best for itself,” he said. Or, in the words of Logan Roy to his adult children: “I love you, but you are not serious people.”
Nicholson’s advice to Logan Roy’s generation is simple: Allow yourself to let go — something that can be difficult for a patriarch or matriarch who dedicated their life to growing a family empire. “The parents need to recognize that the children may have different ideas, and even better ideas, that they come with a fresh perspective,” Nicholson said.
As for the Roy children? They might have done better fixating less on their father and more on themselves, Hokemeyer said.
“The first thing I would tell them is to take their focus off their dad,” who he speculates has malignant narcissism — one of the most “pernicious” personality disorders, Hokemeyer said.
“He’s incapable of forging a relationship with another human being that allows for the vulnerability that is required of healthy intimacy,” he said. “They should give up trying to change or expect anything different from him and focus on changing themselves and their reactions to him.”
