A question of pathology: Attachment patterns,object relations,and a disorder of the self within the rock opera TOMMY

Introduction: Social context of Tommy, outline of psychological themes

In the spring of 1968, songwriter Peter Townshend, previously known for songs like “My Generation,” which exalted early death in lieu of aging, turned his attention to a project that would provide another zeitgeist for that era’s volatile pop culture. The project, he declared, would have a significant effect upon the direction of popular music, as it would introduce elements previously ignored by an established order centered around the 3-minute song: there would be a narrative; repeated musical themes, a central character, and an underlying strain of narrative themes that would speak to the evolving needs of his predominantly youthful audience. The project, later described as a “Rock Opera” about a deaf, dumb, and blind boy who becomes a pop figure and social and spiritual icon, was entitled Tommy, and in the summer of 1969, it became a worldwide hit for Townshend and his group, The Who.

Although this article focuses largely upon the psychological development of a fictional self amid trauma, ¹ the social backdrop and significance of Tommy bears comment. The 1960s is widely regarded as a period of intense social upheaval, particularly within Europe and across the United States. The Who, their contemporaries, plus many in their audience, had grown up in Britain alongside the rationing and grim deprivation of the post World War II years, with parents reticent about the impact of the war. ² Meanwhile, Americans were haunted by a more recent tragedy. Seemingly jaded following the horror that was John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Americans—it is often said—looked outside of themselves for fresh inspiration, finding it in the lighthearted pop art of the Beatles, and in the so-called British Invasion.

By 1969, much had happened. A second Kennedy brother had been assassinated. A Civil Rights movement, though thriving, had also lost its principal icon to violence. An Anti-War movement was at its peak while more quietly, perhaps, an awareness as to the problems of child abuse and neglect was steadily growing. The stage was set for an oblique commentary blending old and new forms of artistic expression: commentary on an audience or culture’s recent traumas; upon the trappings of fame leadership; upon a younger generation’s demand for more transparency in public figures, plus a conflation of art, music, and social conscience.

I don’t necessarily attribute all of these intentions to Tommy’s composer, though periodic quotes from Townshend suggest a more than commercial or simply aesthetic purpose to the opera:

Meher Baba (a Hindu avatar to which Tommy was dedicated) was the first thing that I became committed to properly and from which I got results. It’s about living a better and more loving life in a traditional humanitarian way. (Interview in People, 1980, as cited in Guiliano, 1996, p. 84)

The task is speculative in so far as the opera provides little developmental information. The story of Tommy concerns the reactions, adaptation, and growth of a child who is born during wartime, is without a father due to war, and has witnessed a crime which goes unpunished, and more importantly, is unacknowledged. The central character of Tommy is introduced upon a point of crisis, without extensive prologue or characterization. Therefore, much like Hamlet, Tommy’s dysfunction is manifest; not explained by historical exposition; and also like Hamlet, Tommy’s subsequent efforts to form attachments, achieve intimacy, are profoundly influenced, not only by a violent act but also by the pervasive air of secrecy that surrounds that act. The ambiguity of Tommy’s narrative leaves much room for interpretation and imagination. The opera conveys much via symbol or suggestion, attempting to strike notes on an unconscious level.

Background of attachment theory, psychoanalysis, and object relations

British attachment researcher John Bowlby, ⁵ becoming prominent in the years before and concurrent with Tommy, expounded upon attachment theory in his landmark research.

His idea was simple and powerful: the nature of an infant’s attachment to the parent will become internalized as a working model of attachment. If this model represents security, the child will be able to explore the world and separate in a mature way. If the attachment is problematic, the development of normal behaviors will be impaired. (Siegel, 1999, p. 72)

So questions and controversy arose among professionals during the last century as to what truly impacts childhood development. While Bowlby may have drawn skepticism from psychoanalysts, others followed in his footsteps, assessing development on the basis of caregiver availability, and less so as a result of instinct. Over the last few decades, many have expanded upon Bowlby’s observations, creating assessment tools that yield understanding as to the behavior of children upon separation from caregivers, as well as how early relational patterns might manifest in adult relationships.

Former Bowlby colleague, Mary Ainsworth, for example, devised the Strange Situation classifications. The well-known designations, secure attachment, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized (the latter developed later by Main and Solomon, 1986), delineated patterns of behavior in oft-replicated studies in which infants were separated then later reunited with a parental figure. For each of these categories demonstrated by Strange Situation studies, attachment theory suggests that the pattern of communication between parent and child has shaped the child’s attachment system. Thus, parents who are emotionally receptive, and perceptive, and responsive, are associated with securely attached children, but parents who are unresponsive, or inconsistently responsive or intrusive with their own states of mind tend to generate avoidant-attached and ambivalent-attached children, respectively (Ainsworth et al., 1978). And finally, parents who are frightened, or frightening in their communication with children, tend to nurture a disorganized, or disoriented attachment in their children (Main & Solomon, 1986).

The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), developed by Mary Main and Ruth Goldwyn, asks of its subjects to recall memories of their childhood experiences. What their studies revealed was that a parent’s pattern of narrating their memories of early family life correlate with the above-described Strange Situation classifications, yielding states of mind with respect to attachment, the following categories: secure-autonomous, in which an interviewee seems objective, but valuing of attachment; dismissing, in which an interviewee is positive about attachments, but characterizations are not supported by specific recollections; and preoccupied, in which an interviewee seems angry, confused, passive, or overwhelmed, their narrative disjointed. This research has led to speculation that certain states of mind regarding attachment (elicited by the interview process) are, in effect, engrained in individuals. Furthermore, these findings suggest that classifications identified within Strange Situation studies can predict later adult attachment findings (Main & Goldwyn, 1984). According to the Bowlby theory, the nature of an infant’s attachment to a caregiver will become internalized as a working model of attachment. That said this “working model” is not a monolith, precluding growth, or regression. “If circumstances change, a securely attached infant or young child can become insecurely attached, and an insecure attachment can become secure” (Siegel, 1999, p. 72). This suggests that normal, healthy development may be intruded upon by crisis, or conversely, that in the wake of trauma, healing is possible. I think of object relations theory and attachment theory as models of the mind, different yet not wholly incompatible, straddling ideas of nature and nurture, whereas trauma constitutes the intrusion of fate.

Overview of the opera, analysis of Tommy’s early development

As outlined in Marsh (1983), Tommy Walker is born in 1914 during the early days of World War I, after his father has been reported missing in action and presumed dead. Lyrical narration indicates that the apparently normal and healthy child is fated to “never know him,” but nothing else is offered as to the early development of Tommy. The father returns, however, some years later—as late as 1921, in fact—to reunite with his wife and child, only to discover that Tommy’s mother has since taken a lover. An altercation ensues in which the father murders the lover, ⁶ and Tommy witnesses this event. The anxious parents turn to him, and admonish: “You didn’t hear it, you didn’t see it, you won’t say nothing to no one ever in your life.” The implication is that Tommy’s subsequent affliction—his deaf, dumb, and blind condition—is rooted in the message he receives from his parents. On the other hand, we might also infer from the thin descriptions that groundwork for an already insecure attachment had previously been laid, perhaps due to the absence of the father, or perhaps, from a more classically psychoanalytic point of view, due to the repetition in his play, which may in turn be due to innate libidinal, aggressive qualities within him. Tommy is a fictional contemporary of Freud’s (1920) “good little boy” grandson, little Ernst, and like him, possibly, has made play of disappearances, observed fort (“gone”) and da (“there”), “staging the disappearance and return of his objects” (p. 15).

The middle section of the opera contains relatively little action, but much response to the sudden onset, and chronic persistence, of Tommy’s sensory deprivation. He is observed to be mute, unresponsive, and introverted. He seems preoccupied with games (pinball, most notably), and later, his reflection in mirrors. He is indifferent to Christmas celebrations, and, by implication, conventional expressions of spirituality. This characterization inclines the observer toward an assessment of pathology, partly because his condition appears abnormal, but more specifically because he appears to have lost a symbolic level of mental organization, as well as a dialectic between internal and external reality. While supporting characters lament Tommy’s introversion, lyrics speculate as to a rich, inner life: “Ten years old, with thoughts as bold, as thoughts can be,” suggesting not only sympathy toward Tommy but also perhaps an attribution of healthy adaptation to the “deaf, dumb, and blind” condition. Tommy’s internal experience is cast not only as a solipsism but also as a “sickness” that informs growth:

Sickness will surely take the mind

Where minds can’t usually go

Come on the amazing journey

And learn all you should know

Other characters’ responses express the seeming futility of engaging Tommy, or else they reflect a secret inclination toward abuse, or exploitation: an alcoholic uncle “fiddles about,” that is, he molests Tommy. A delinquent and sadistic cousin torments Tommy with pins in his fingers; cigarette burns upon his arm; meanwhile, much neglect on the part of his parents is implied. Then, in a seemingly adolescent rite of passage (“if your child aint all he should be now, this girl will put him right”), Tommy is introduced to the character of the Acid Queen: the exchange between them is part hallucinogenic-partly sexual. The sardonic lyrics suggest a corrupted moment of growth (“your boy won’t be a boy no more, young but not a child”).

Eventually, Tommy’s affinity for games pays dividends: entering a pinball competition, he becomes a champion, amazing onlookers with his “supple wrist” and imperturbability (“he aint got no distractions”). This is perhaps a materialization of a previously suggested idea that from sickness proceeds adaptability, even thriving. Tommy’s victories draw followers, or “disciples,” as they are fashionably described. Here, Tommy’s messianism is foreshadowed even as he and his family continue to seek treatment for his supposed afflictions. Although medical professionals declare his condition non-organic, and hint at an internal, psychological disorder: “there is no chance no untried operation, all hope lies with him and none with me.” He is directed to a mirror, and is seen to be dreaming upon his reflection. Internally, he sings the “Listening to you” refrain of “See Me, Feel Me,” and seems exhilarated. Regarding this portion of the opera, I inject a Kleinian perspective. The “you” of this moment is comprised of ego and objects, from whom he not only fears annihilation but also fears losing. His mother’s frustration with Tommy’s opaqueness boils over. In a fit, she smashes the (rival?) mirror that transfixes Tommy, for the child is a part of herself. She is split into two parts: one an uncontrollable child who doesn’t mirror the object (“you don’t seem to see me, but I think you can see yourself,” from “Smash the Mirror”); the other the object or objects who tried to coerce her.

Anyway, the story turns on this event. Tommy is freed rather than destroyed—another exhilarated discovery? Separated from the indulgent and self-soothing grasp of the mirror; radiating the presence and vitality that draws followers to him, Tommy transforms into a religious leader of undefined values or associations. Nonetheless, he preaches, leads gatherings, and exhorts all who are interested to follow him. He and his followers build a commune-like house that later enlarges into a camp, and people from all walks of life are urged to join.

In the climactic sequence, listeners may gather that Tommy’s spiritual enlightenment has developed a dark side: the so-called holiday camp has an air of corruption or at least unchecked consumerism about it, and Tommy himself seems like a taskmaster: “If you want to follow me, you have to play pinball. So, put in your ear plugs, put on your shades, you know where to put the cork!” To follow him, they must mirror his experience, it seems. Disgruntled followers give voice to their disillusion, and then violently revolt. Tommy’s prescription for their spiritual enlightenment has fallen upon deaf ears, so to speak, and so his camp, his organization, his messianic following, collapses. Tommy is once again left isolated at the opera’s conclusion, performing a refrain that speaks to the power of either God, or collective humanity, or both. ⁷ He is alone, but possibly integrated within himself.

Analysis of Tommy: Distortions of reality

The themes embedded within the story: of alienation, frozen attachments, a hunger for connectedness (“See Me, Feel Me”), resonate broadly with principles of object relations theory, as well as our understanding of responses to trauma. Tommy, one might think, is a good candidate for long-term analysis. And that therapy might reflect upon an early attachment history, or else seek to develop within Tommy the narrative of past and present events, that seems either missing or distorted.

First, regarding that attachment history, and shifting back to an imagined course of development, speculations can be made, extrapolating from known early events, as to the quality of Tommy’s attachment to his caregivers. We can wonder, for example, as to the events of his pre-libretto early life. Of Tommy’s mother, we may speculate that the backdrop of World War and the disappearance of her husband are traumatizing in their impact, and that she is chronically depressed. This may have rendered her unresponsive to Tommy’s needs, and dismissive in her attachment pattern, which may in turn be an echo of her own early attachment pattern. ⁸ In the 1975 film version of Tommy, two interpolated scenes extrapolate from the opera’s opening songs, visually characterizing Tommy’s mooted insecure attachment. The mother is portrayed as a woman prone to catatonic expression and histrionic mood swings. With a wooden and affectless Tommy by her side, she stands impassively at a memorial service for her presumptively deceased husband (or it’s a war anniversary event—it’s not clear); then later, again with Tommy in tow, she appears demure at a holiday retreat, yet sings of her longing for new romance. Significantly, in both scenes, she seems negligibly attentive to her father-less child.

A watershed moment is captured within the song “1921.” Tommy has witnessed the murder of his mother’s lover by his father, and is thereafter compelled to silence. What is popularly understood about Tommy is that witnessing the murder constitutes the trauma. However, I think it is significant that the song itself does not even reference murder, much less who has killed whom. For dramatists, this is perhaps an annoying narrative flaw. What I suggest is that ambiguity allows for different interpretations: the lyrics emphasize the harm perpetrated by the parents’ message, “You didn’t hear it, etc.,” and its link to the presumed psychosomatic-like affliction (Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Boy), which is introduced in the very next song, “Amazing Journey.” ⁹ Consider also the observations of trauma researchers such as Besel van der Kolk: “(It is) the individual’s response to the event determines whether or not the event is actually traumatizing” (as cited in Aposhyan, 2004, p. 70). So Tommy’s reactions suggest a dissociated syndrome, albeit with dramatic embellishment (the disabilities).

In Cassidy’s (2001) article, “Truth, Lies, and Intimacy,” she draws attention to the criteria for secure and insecure attachments, as derived from narrative recollections within the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). A defining feature of a secure narrative is that it is truthful, is the maxim she highlights. As Cassidy (2001) writes, “parents can be untruthful about the reality of the child’s experiences in a variety of ways.” They can ignore, withdraw from, or become angry in response to the child’s behaviors and feelings, and thereby convey that those behaviors and feelings are unacceptable. In plainer terms, there is a pervasive distortion to the insecurely attached dyad, one that is betrayed by specific memories, spontaneous expressions, or else impulsive behaviors.

In Tommy, the clearest expression of this pattern occurs within the song entitled, “Christmas.” Tommy’s parents attempt false yuletide spirit, and young Tommy is having none of it. In the chorus, they look to shame him for lacking enthusiasm, and then bemoan his spiritual future:

And Tommy doesn’t know what day it is

Doesn’t know who Jesus was or what praying is

How can he be saved?

Analysis of personality development

Later object relations theory provides an understanding of personality disorders, through maps of intra-psychic structure derived from earlier object relations theory. The Narcissistic disorder of the self is characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity defending underlying inadequacy (Masterson, 1981). The split object relations units, so described by Masterson (1976, 1981) indicate that a Narcissistic personality’s object relations are distinguished by a fusion of object and self-representations. ¹¹ The Narcissist feels entitled to fuse his grandiose self-representation with an omnipotent object-representation. Underlying this unconscious arrangement, a harsh, devaluing object fuses with an inadequate and “un-entitled” self, leading to depression. In contrast, the Schizoid personality type is characterized by a pervasive pattern of detachment in social relationships, representing an underlying fear of coercion, or worse, sadism. Within the Schizoid personality split object relations unit, the structure is divided into attachment and non-attachment units, with the distinguishing feature that Schizoid personalities are predominantly drawn to the non-attachment condition. The attachment unit/part unit, known as the Master/Slave part-unit, contains objects generally perceived as coercive and manipulative, while the self-representation is that of a dependent. In the paradoxically preferred non-attachment unit/part unit, known as the Sadistic object/self in exile part-unit, objects are experienced as sadistic (naturally), or simply dangerous, while the self is alienated, self-reliant, and stagnantly safe (Masterson and Klein, 1995).

That safety, possibly like that of Tommy in the deaf, dumb, and blind condition, is a haven, but ultimately an unsatisfying, perhaps terrifying state of self. There lies within the Schizoid a hunger for connection, but one which he must achieve upon his own terms. I suggest this is the goal to which Tommy Walker aspires. Deprived of an upbringing that was safe, or even truthful, he retreats into a private reality. The desire for connection is expressed, but for most of the opera that care-seeking is a muted cry (The “See Me, Feel Me” refrain is an internal song). Meanwhile, he appears to rely upon self-soothing behaviors, the “vibration land” referred to in “Amazing Journey,” and in the vibrations of the pinball machine. Pinball, in this context, is less a salvation for Tommy than it is a youthful path through “potential space,” and later, to identity. Talk about finding oneself on one’s own terms, his “pinball champion” status is an invention: a product of his play, and perhaps, returning to the social context angle of this article, a zeitgeist of his time. Like the rock star that is Pete Townshend, Tommy has become something quite outside an elder generation’s frame of reference. Tommy the alienated figure is something more than a celebrated loner with entertaining skills, something closer to an icon of disenfranchised youth calling for social involvement. The self-absorbing mirror is thus smashed by a likely self-serving mother, and that act, though coercive, seems propitious.

The mirror references in the opera might hit a mythical chord for the listener. As a virtual totem of Narcissism, the mirror’s ubiquity for Tommy renders his unlikely rise to stardom somehow unsurprising. The proto-narcissist in Tommy seems fused with the mirror; with himself, or, in a spiritual/psychological twist, his notion of God (“A tall stranger I suddenly see…his golden beard flows nearly down to the ground”—the omnipotent object?). Lacking an idealized figure for himself, he becomes one. This false self is manifest in his bizarre celebrity and in the spiritual qualities attributed to him, and in the latter sequences, the pathological distortions become more observable: Tommy’s grandiosity, his penultimate indignation toward others’ recalcitrance; their failure to follow him. Tommy is not a malignant figure, but rather more naïve, less an exploiter than one whose neediness and exhilaration has been exploited. As listeners, we might imagine that Tommy’s incipiently insecure attachment style has resurfaced: he is, at once, aloof, alienated; a fantasist. He haughtily upbraids his followers for not appreciating what his camp has to offer, but meanwhile exhibits little of his own self-reflection. Like many real-life popular icons, he has come to believe in his own press, which seems human. Paradoxically connected to us, he elicits our sympathy.

Still, I suggest that Tommy’s child and later adult actions, his few spoken thoughts and internal process suggest something more than a correlate between insecure attachments patterns and later “states of mind,” as offered by attachment theory. Indeed, in my opinion, his pattern points to a Schizoid pathology, with the Narcissistic features presenting as a subset of a Schizoid disorder of self. To make sense of this observation, I refer to Harry Guntrip’s conceptualizations of the Schizoid personality. Guntrip identified nine characteristics that he thought distinguished the schizoid personality, and in Tommy Walker, examples abound. Tommy’s introversion is suggested by the line, “Hey hung up old mister normal, don’t try to gain my trust,” from the song, “We’re Not Gonna’ Take It,” which is a dialogue between Tommy and his followers. His withdrawnness is observed by the Sally Simpson character:

She knew from the start

Deep down in her heart

She and Tommy were worlds apart

Were Tommy to enter long-term analysis, treatment might focus upon the wounds of rejection, or else the dilemma of finding safety and connection amid brutality and cynicism. However, Tommy himself utters few lines of dialogue, and while lines within songs such as “Sensation,” “I’m Free,” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” express joy in his newfound “awareness,” or comment upon his relationship with his followers, they do little to illuminate the processes of Tommy’s mind. So we might wonder: What did Tommy understand about the smashing of the mirror, versus merely experience, as suggested by the lyrics? Or what did he understand about the resistance and subsequent revolt of his followers, and what did he understand about his anger toward them?

In therapy, or analysis, Tommy might be asked to reflect upon the feelings that accompany his diatribe of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”:

Hey you getting drunk

So sorry, I’ve got you sussed

Hey you smokin’ mother nature

You missed the bus

Tommy as a teaching tool

It is fanciful to imagine a Tommy sequel, in which listeners might hear Tommy not only speak but also reflect on events, both of the recent and distant past. Instead, he is frozen in popular myth: an enigma of pathology, survival, and triumph, born of nature, or nurture, or a combination of both. ¹² He was, perhaps, an innately aggressive child, stuck in a “paranoid-schizoid” position; or, he was an insecurely attached child, nurtured by a parent (or parents) that were at first unresponsive or unavailable, and later frightening. An already problematic, albeit undefined pattern was perhaps exacerbated by a complex and confusing trauma, culminating in a disorganized pattern that despite certain adaptive characteristics and talents, he manifested a correspondingly disorganized/unresolved pattern as an adult, and further presented with Narcissistic elements within a broader Schizoid personality disorder. Finally, I offer a more precise pair of notions that: (a) Tommy is illustrative of an insecure attachment born of, or else exacerbated by, an insecure narrative; and (b) Tommy illustrates that when a child becomes overwhelmed and frozen, he or she may struggle to move within a psychological dialectic between internal and external reality.

The art of Tommy offers inspiration, and climactic healing of the above-described psychopathology. Art, unlike psychoanalysis, collapses time, depicting a parallel, if concise path of growth, not a protracted course of treatment. And Tommy cuts more corners than most narrative art, while still providing the listener with a satisfying, if oblique display of psychological lessons. After the fall of the holiday camp, Tommy makes quick notice of his folly, and sings a final song to his now absented followers. The “See Me, Feel Me/Listening to you” reprise/finale thus reads like an ode to his real self:

Listening to you I get the music

Gazing at you I get the heat

Following you I climb a mountain

I get excitement at your feet

He may have held social or even political dimensions in mind also. Rock’s constituent audience, for example, might achieve social involvement on its own terms, emerge, as The Who did, from its early, insecure attachment or “paranoid-schizoid position” (the anarchic, persecutory “My Generation” dictum), and grow. It is incumbent upon pop stars and their fans to not only inspire but also set limits for one another, to keep a level head as to what is expected of artists, and their audiences. Therefore, Tommy seems like a cautionary tale, and 1969 witnessed an eventful challenge to that generation of listeners. In the late summer of that year, as the epic utopianism of the “Woodstock Nation” (where the Who—aptly enough—famously performed) darkened violently under a sun overlooking an Altamont Speedway, ¹³ a growing cult of Tommy fans, observant of autocracy, mindful of revolutionary times, may have contemplated the manner of the holiday camp’s demise. Tommy was topical, an allegorical reflection of the era. But its themes are also perennial, allowing for those in succeeding generations to draw meaning: those others may be survivors of abuse, or the politically marginalized seeking truer engagement with leadership; the silent, or the silenced. As the only truly mythical character to emerge from rock music’s checkered history, Tommy’s purpose and meanings linger, operating on an unconscious level, informing us.