Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler, a renowned psychologist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and writer, has spent her life diving into the depths of the human psyche, unraveling the complex tapestry of fears, traumas, and desires that shape our existence. Her work, deeply rooted in psychoanalytic theory, has touched the lives of many, offering a path to healing and self-discovery. Dr. Kavaler-Adler passionately explores one of the most intriguing themes in psychology: the Fear of Success.
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To learn more about Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler’s current services, you can visit her website, www.kavaleradler.com.
With its multifaceted origins, this complex phenomenon captivates audiences and invites deep self-reflection.
Her work brings to light the subtle yet powerful forces—such as unresolved grief and emotional paralysis—that often hinder personal and artistic fulfillment. With a profound understanding of how early traumas and unstable relationships influence adult life, she offers unique insight into the psychological barriers that creatives, in particular, face. Her fascination led her to establish a writing group, alongside her therapeutic practice, to help artists contend with their generative struggles.
“The fear of success manifests as someone not being able to go forward towards their goals or towards success, particularly when it involves separation from an internal parent. It may manifest as being inhibited altogether, or it may manifest as going forward and then sabotaging any success and undoing it.”
The roots of this fear often trace back to early developmental stages, where a child’s sense of self is inextricably linked to their mother’s presence—or lack thereof. It’s in this fragile phase that a mother’s inability to provide a nurturing environment leads to a developmental arrest. This moment creates a ripple effect, echoing throughout life, making every move toward success feel like a step toward annihilation.
Dr. Kavaler-Adler recalls a patient, a writer, who came to her paralyzed by her own potential. Every time this woman sat down to write, an overwhelming sense of dread would engulf her. Despite an undeniable talent, she couldn’t move forward—her fingers hovering over the keyboard as guilt and fear consumed her, though she did not understand why.
What surfaced in their sessions was a deep-seated fear of overshadowing her mother, an artist who had sacrificed her own dreams to support the family. The patient’s creative paralysis was a psychological defense—a way of remaining loyal to a mother who couldn’t realize her own artistic ambitions. “She had an early abandonment trauma, and part of her was terrified that succeeding in her writing meant killing off her mother,” she says. Dr. Kavaler-Adler worked with this patient to confront these complex emotions, allowing the woman to finally unlock her creativity and find success in her writing.
The emotional complexity of this dynamic was intricate, layered with unresolved guilt towards her mother, which originally took the form of terror of maternal retaliation. In fact, she had a fear of stepping into a life the mother could never have. The patient had to navigate these murky waters of grief and longing, acknowledging what she had internalized as a child.
Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s insight into the psychological blocks that hinder success isn’t just theoretical—it’s deeply rooted in the real-life struggles her patients face. Fear of surpassing one’s parents can be a subtle, insidious feeling lurking beneath the surface, sabotaging opportunities before they even have a chance to bloom.
This narrative highlights how even seemingly minor early traumas can have lasting impacts on an individual’s psyche. In this case, it wasn’t until the patient had consciously mourned her mother’s sacrifices that she could move beyond the artistic block.
“She ultimately reached a place where she could say she felt more gratitude than guilt towards her mother. She moved forward and was able to write, publish, and receive awards for her writing. But when she first came to me, she couldn’t even get herself to sit down to write, even though she had an innate talent for it.”
Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s own experiences with grief have shaped her nuanced understanding of these emotional landscapes. Losing her father at the age of ten set her on a personal journey of mourning, one that ultimately led her to specialize in grief therapy. The challenges of her home life after her father’s death amplified her insight into family dynamics and emotional trauma.
For Dr. Kavaler-Adler, mourning is not solely about grieving a loss—it is about accepting the reality of what was lost, be it a relationship, a sense of security, or an unrealized dream. She invokes the concept of “developmental mourning,” which involves coming to terms with unmet childhood needs. This process includes mourning the idealized parent or childhood that never truly existed.
“There’s a writer who is famous for having said, ‘The past isn’t in the past.’ Yes, the past is in the present. It’s inside of everyone, every moment. If they don’t consciously face what has been dissociated or repressed, then they compulsively repeat the past in reenactments in the present.”
Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler explains how unresolved emotions from the past can unconsciously influence present behavior, including creative processes. Many individuals, particularly artists, may reenact past traumas through their work, sometimes without even realizing it. The inability to let go of an internalized parental figure hinders personal and creative growth. “They reenact the trauma over and over again. Even if it may be in brilliant ways, they are still reenacting that primal trauma in their lives and their work,” she says.
“Children are forced to internalize and identify with their parents. Suppose they don’t have a good experience of actual relatedness with their parents. In that case, their parents’ identity swallows them whole, and they must identify cooperatively, which causes them to dissociate parts of themselves from their more conscious selves. This keeps them away from intimacy and relationships. It prevents intimacy with the self at times for creative work, too.”
Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s work delves into how these internalized dynamics, referred to as “object relations,” shape future relationships and self-perception. Individuals often struggle to mourn and let go of these internalized “parental objects,” leading to a defense mechanism that isolates them emotionally and creatively.
So, while some people may be stuck in an emotional paralysis, others may compulsively work in unsustainable ways. She explores this and the nature of the creative process in her in her books The Compulsion to Create: Women Writers and Their Demon Lovers (Routledge 1993, ORI Academic Press, 2013) and The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoe Frenzy to Love and Creativity (Routledge 1996, ORI Academic Press, 2014). The books explore the stories of famous writers such as Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Virginia Woolf.
“They can’t mourn and let go of their parent; they can’t internalize in any selective way any positive benefit there. They had to incorporate a whole negative, bad object that disrupted their development. The defenses against that can include withdrawing from the world and trying to live in their creative work. On the other hand, some could heal life’s losses in their work. In The Compulsion to Create, I also explore those stories. Charlotte Bronte was able to mourn and heal through the creative process since she was not traumatized in her primary developmental years but had later losses that she could mourn in her work.”
A lifelong writer, Dr. Kavaler-Adler has always been fascinated by how early experiences can shape the creative mind. Now, Dr. Kavaler-Adler runs a monthly writing group where participants share their creative works and explore the emotional blocks delaying their progress. She believes creative expression—through writing, painting, or dance—is intimately connected to the unconscious mind. By addressing emotional blockages, individuals can unlock new dimensions in their personal lives and become more generative in their disciplines.
“In the group, people are working on all kinds of writing. Some have published memoirs; some have written scholarly articles, poetry, journal writing, short stories, fiction novels—self-expression of every kind. The writing groups, much like individual work, help them with resistances and blocks, as well as the actual project they might be working on.”
Participants can see their struggles reflected in others in a group setting, fostering empathy and insight. The shared experience becomes a mirror, allowing individuals to witness their own emotional patterns in the experiences of their peers.
“When they’re in the group, they can see right there in the here and now—they can see the other, and the other can see them. They get to be with others, sharing their life experience, how they are, and going through that journey simultaneously.”
Her monthly writing group, which has become a cherished haven for writers, blends therapeutic principles with creative expression in a way that is rare in traditional therapy or writing workshops. It serves as a powerful supplement to individual therapy sessions, providing a transformative environment for participants.
“There is a rotation of people who each get 20 to 30 minutes to talk about what they’re working on. They may ask the group and myself what they need at that moment. Maybe they just need help editing a project. Sometimes, they want to know, ‘How does this character come across? How should this character develop? Where should I go with this?’ I respond with what messages I get from their writing, what I think they’re trying to express, and what stands out that I think would reach their readers. If they want a particular kind of help, like feeling they can’t get past something, or they’re blocked in some way or seeing their own resistances, we can address that as well.”
This fusion of creativity and therapy allows participants to explore the roots of their creative blocks, which often stem from emotional barriers. For Dr. Kavaler-Adler, the group process facilitates artistic breakthroughs and encourages forward movement.
In her writing group, Dr. Kavaler-Adler invites members from various creative disciplines to join, enriching the group’s dynamic through diverse perspectives. She recalls one artist who began her journey in a creative process group but eventually transitioned into five years of individual therapy.
“She had profound imagery that came into her paintings, and she would bring slides of them to the group, which was a creative process group, one not just for writers.”
During one of their one-on-one sessions, after multiple meetings each week, the artist wanted to share another slide of her work. However, Dr. Kavaler-Adler asked her to express the imagery in words instead. “She got incredibly enraged at me,” Dr. Kavaler-Adler recalls, but that intense reaction unlocked a breakthrough. After leaving the session in anger, the artist experienced a vivid memory resurfacing: at 11 years old, she had tried to express her anger to her mother, only to be met with the hurtful statement, “Things will never be the same between us again.” This moment caused the artist to emotionally shut down, abandoning words as her medium of assertiveness.
“Things never were the same, and she totally shut down after that. She didn’t become mute, but she gave up on words in terms of self-expression and became a painter instead.”
This pivotal memory, triggered during the session, illuminated how deeply the artist’s relationship with her mother had influenced her creative path. It exemplifies how complex and interwoven personal experiences and the creative process can be and how difficult it is to unravel the emotional threads that drive artistic freedom.
The creative process group, which has since merged with the writing group and transitioned online, offers a therapeutic space for participants to engage in both creative work and emotional exploration. It meets on the second Friday of every month.
During these group sessions, participants are always encouraged to respond to one another, sharing insights and empathy. Dr. Kavaler-Adler adds her own feedback and her special insights as an author of 7 published books and over 70 articles, as well as her interpretations of ways that the writer in the group can block, inhibit, or sabotage herself/himself.
In another group, which deals directly with psychotherapy and support, as well as with mourning and grief, Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler begins by leading members into a relaxed state through breathing exercises and begins a guided meditative visualization.
“I start with people just closing their eyes and breathing,” she explains. As they breathe deeper, they are invited to explore their emotions, addressing any person who comes to mind and expressing what needs to be said.
“I’ll remind them to breathe deeper, and then at some point I ask, ‘What does your gut have to say?’”
For Dr. Kavaler-Adler, the gut is often the seat of instinctual emotions like fear and anger. Participants are encouraged to express these feelings without filtering them through intellectual processes. Once they have spoken from the gut, Dr. Kavaler-Adler shifts the focus to the heart.
“If you feel a heart connection, allow yourself to speak through your heart to this person,” she says. Afterward, participants are guided to either keep the person in their hearts or release them. “I ask them to say goodbye to the person for the moment… to see where they’re holding back and where they’re letting go.”
“Focusing on the gut and the heart is part of finding the instinctual communication with fear, hunger, anger and rage in the gut, and love, loss, yearning, and longing in the heart. However, there is also the overall focus on speaking to the people who emerge when breathing and closing their eyes during the meditation. We are not just working with feelings in the body. I am also helping people put their thoughts and feelings into words within their own minds, leading to the sharing of the experience. We focus on who comes to consciousness through the internal world and speaking to these internal people.”
In addition, Dr. Kavaler-Adler runs an experiential supervision group where she demonstrates mock-therapy sessions in real-time, allowing practicing clinicians to witness her therapeutic methods. “They also get to see me in the moment, how I would interact with a patient,” she says.
Interestingly, Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler’s background in modern dance, as well as her 30-year passion for Argentine tango, has profoundly influenced her therapeutic approach. This love for dance inspired her to write Saturday Nights at Lafayette Grill: True Tales and Gossips of the New York City Argentine Tango Scene (Mindmend Press, 2016), a book filled with personal essays about the tango culture in New York City. “There are personal essays in there about tango in New York City,” she explains. The book also features interviews with prominent tango professionals and teachers who perform and teach in the scene.
While pursuing her PhD in Clinical Psychology in her early twenties, Dr. Kavaler-Adler trained with the renowned Blanche Evan, a pioneer in dance therapy. This training enriched her sensitivity to non-verbal expression, a skill she integrates seamlessly into her work. She encourages her patients to connect more deeply with their bodies, tuning in to the messages conveyed by physical sensations. This connection helps uncover repressed emotions that might not emerge through traditional talk therapy alone.
Yearly, on the first Saturday of the month, from September through June, Dr. Kavaler Adler runs a therapy and support group emphasizing individual mourning, grief, and psychic change processes. When focusing on bodywork, Dr. Kavaler-Adler combines verbal therapy with somatic techniques, such as guided visualizations, to help participants access these deeper emotions. She invites them to communicate with the parts of their body holding tension or pain.
“I work with a meditation that encourages communication with those one carries in their internal psychic worlds. It is not just about focusing on body parts or pain in body parts. The rage, terror, and hunger, as well as the love, loss, grief, and longing, are in relation to others who reside within. Whoever emerges brings the need for communication with parts of oneself to consciousness.”
Even in her individual sessions, she has found that her focus on the nonverbal has led to significant insights.
“For example, when one patient was on the couch, there was a way that he would use his foot, like a brake on a car, when he was afraid of feelings. When I would interpret that he was holding back at that point, then he would be able to let the repressed feelings come through, and he would be able to express himself consciously.”
Dr. Kavaler-Adler expertly highlights the value of understanding body language, showcasing her keen ability to gauge her clients’ perspectives. She points out the distinguishing among various forms of crying—aggressive crying, grief crying, anxiety crying—each offering a unique glimpse into the intricate layers of the psyche that deserve our attention and understanding.
“I’m aware of their facial expressions as well, along with the tone of their voice and even my own tone of voice. If somebody’s lying down, the idea is to help them not be so conscious of the therapist, and instead be able to go into their inner world, fantasies, and dreams, allowing them to be more with themselves.”
Another critical aspect of her work is dream analysis, which she views as a direct path to the unconscious mind.
“They’re the essence because, I mean, everything is important that somebody says, but the dreams tell you firsthand what the unconscious is saying to you. They’re the primal part of the psyche. So, whatever comes from dreams is your psychic reality.”
Dr. Kavaler-Adler helps individuals understand that every figure and object in their dreams is a reflection of their own psyche. “They’re the writer, the director, and the producer of the dream, and they’re in every part of it,” she says. Even figures that evoke negative emotions in dreams represent a part of the dreamer.
“They might have people in their dream that they really hate or despise, but I say, ‘These are parts of you, too, because they’re coming up from your unconscious.’”
It is often challenging for people to accept that the despised or feared parts of their dreams mirror something unresolved within themselves.
“Maybe they watched the news last night, and there’s somebody they hate on the news, and then they have them in a dream. Then they have to deal with the fact that a part of their psyche has identified with that person.”
By helping individuals confront these hidden aspects of their psyche, Dr. Kavaler-Adler enables them to reveal hidden desires, fears, and unresolved issues, offering a unique opportunity for emotional growth.
“Not only do people find out that every part of the dream is part of them, but they can help bring it into awareness so they’re a fuller person,” she says. “Dreams,” she explains, “also offer a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of our relationships with others, and offer critical metaphors about how we experience ourselves in the world.”
“Going back to Freud and interpretation of dreams, there’s always condensations of people. So, their mother, wife, and sister could all be condensed into one in a dream if they have a similar psychodynamic meaning, an emotional and motivational meaning from an unconscious level.”
In other words, different relationships can merge into one figure in a dream, reflecting the emotional complexity of the dreamer’s interactions.
“There would also be displacement from one to the other, so they might put into somebody else what’s within them, and that’s a way of trying to get away from what they feel,” she explains.
While Freud famously interpreted dreams as wish fulfillment, Dr. Kavaler-Adler points out that many dreams, particularly nightmares, are rooted in fear. In her published work on nightmares, she explores them through the lens of object relations, noting that they often reveal deep anxieties about unresolved parts of the self.
“The definition of a nightmare is that one wakes up from it. So that means it’s scary enough to wake you up. It creates anxiety,” she explains, “sometimes terror.” Unlike Freud’s concept of dreams serving as a form of repression to allow sleep, nightmares force dreamers to confront their fears head-on. “But, of course, to deal with its meaning, you have to remember it when you wake up,” she adds. For this reason, she encourages her patients to record their dreams by writing them down or using their phones to document them. However, she also interprets unconscious psychological defenses against remembering dreams.
In her book, The Anatomy of Regret: From Death Instinct to Reparation and Symbolization through Vivid Clinical Cases (Karnac/Routledge, 2013), Dr. Kavaler-Adler delves into the profound impact of regret on the human psyche. She explains that unresolved regret can become a powerful force of self-sabotage, trapping people in cycles of guilt and shame. However, when regret is consciously faced and mourned, it can be a transformative catalyst for change.
“In my book, there are stories of people in treatment who, because they were willing to face their regrets consciously, were able to change in a positive way and not have to keep sabotaging themselves with the repetition of the same things that made them feel regret.”
A prolific writer, some of Dr. Kavaler Adler’s other books include Mourning, Spirituality and Psychic Change: A New Object Relations View of Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2003; Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, NAAP, 2004), The Klein-Winnicott Dialectic: Transformative New Metapsychology and Interactive Clinical Theory (Karnac/Routledge, 2014), and Selected Papers by Susan Kavaler-Adler, Volume 1: Developmental Mourning, Erotic Transference, and Object Relations Psychoanalysis (IPBooks, 2022).
Dr. Kavaler-Adler offers advice for individuals hesitant to enter therapy, understanding that the process requires vulnerability. It takes immense courage to confront ingrained patterns and disrupt the familiar, even if the familiar is limiting.
“Some people are much more afraid of change than others. Sometimes, it can be because they’re afraid they’ll have to give up their current identity, which doesn’t feel authentic, and they’ll have to go through some kind of confusion about who they are. They have unconscious conflicts—feelings or thoughts are repressed. These things show up through dreams or fantasies or symptoms in how they compartmentalize things or in their bodies. Some people repress feelings more, and others repress thoughts more, but you need both thoughts and feelings to integrate on a conscious level—the whole experience from the past and the self today come together.”
Many individuals develop self-sufficiency as a defense mechanism in childhood, often in response to punitive or indifferent reactions from caregivers when they sought help. While this coping strategy may be practical in certain areas of life, it can become an emotional barrier, isolating individuals and preventing intimacy, creative self-expression, and sustained love.
“Emotionally and psychologically, self-sufficiency doesn’t work. It keeps people out. It keeps us alone. It keeps us closed off in a place where we’re not in contact and connection with their feelings with other people.”
Asking for help, she explains, is the first step toward breaking down these emotional walls and initiating the healing process. Without seeking support, individuals may resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as addictions or compulsive behaviors, to manage their unprocessed emotions. She encourages those struggling to recognize this and seek help.
“I would tell them they’re trying to protect themselves with that attitude of self-sufficiency, but that could imprison them and keep them in a very lonely, isolated, and disconnected state.”
Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler can be reached via email at drkavaleradler@gmail.com. To learn more about her life’s work and her current services, you can visit her website, www.kavaleradler.com.
Moumita Basuroychowdhury is a Contributing Reporter at The National Digest. After earning an economics degree at Cornell University, she moved to NYC to pursue her MFA in creative writing. She enjoys reporting on science, business and culture news. You can reach her at moumita.b@thenationaldigest.com.
