Archives for November 2009

I don’t intend to bash Tiger Woods. If, indeed it is true that he is “involved” with Rachel Uchitel, I can understand.

There is a pattern I’ve observed over and over again in my past 25 years as a therapist. Highly successful people, their family and friends call them “good” people, eventually must deal with the ugly side of their personal need for extreme achievement.

Remember Tiger on the Johnny Carson Show, without blinking his 4 year old eyes, “I’m going to be the best golfer in the world!” Everyone believed him.

From that point on Tiger filled more than one room with trophies.

And, he collected all those trophies because golf was his life. His practice routines from an early age are well documented.

Where was he in 9th grade? On the golf course, practicing and bringing home trophies. His focus was the golf ball and his ability to control the flight of that ball as well as his mental focus.

I bring up 9th grade because it is crucial time in psychosexual development. We “fall in love,” get dumped, “fall in love” again at a frightening pace.

We learn to differentiate between caring for someone and lust, between the mating urge and need for control of our impulses, between being genuine with someone or manipulating to get what we want and how to accept someone “loving us” and how to cope with someone saying no. For most it’s a time to experience embarrassment, the intensity of feelings, and for some to “sow their oats.”

If we don’t “get it right” in 9th grade, it will emerge again.

I believe high achievers often miss out on this important segment of their lives, since the ultimate achievement goal takes precedence. Their inner life and the richness experienced in relationships becomes dormant.

Instead of “letting go” every so often, the high achiever overdevelops strict control that serves his/her personal need to achieve.

Tiger has certainly attempted to control his life. His mental control on the golf course in unparalleled. He won a major by playing through the pain of a broken leg.

We know very little about Tiger. His personal life is hidden – under his control. And, he lives behind a walled fortress in Florida.

That ability to control and set boundaries, at some point for the high achiever, falls apart.

And, what we see then is a polarity response… behavior we never thought that person capable.

Family, friends, the media exclaim, “No way, that’s not like him/her! Never saw it coming!”

Just yesterday I coached a wife whose very successful business person, upstanding community leader – husband became entangled in a 13 month steamy affair with what I remember some calling a “barfly.” His life was tumbling down the tubes.

The effort it takes to control and focus on the external goal often meets an end, and sometimes, it’s not pretty.

I did research this morning and discovered that Rachel Uchitel some would describe as a “loose canon.”

She is bragging to others about her and Tiger’s explicit text messages (in 9th grade we used to secretly slip each other notes with drawn hearts and xoxoxs.) She’s been rumored to be with a number of men and has a pattern of seducing celebrities on a pretty regular basis.

I don’t think this is someone Tiger would bring home to mother.

But, she might fit nicely into Tiger’s need to “let loose?”

Just perhaps this is “unfinished business” for Tiger that he missed in 9th grade?

I’m not saying that Tiger IS having an affair with this woman. I’m saying it is possible – and why it is possible, not only for Tiger but for countless others in our culture attempting to meet their personal achievement needs.

But, more than that, I want you to understand the journey of life that we all must traverse, that brings us opportunities to grow, mature and evolve intrapersonally and in our relationships.

Sometimes we hit it well. Sometimes we triple bogey.