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President Park Geun-hye bows her head as she makes her second public apology for the Choi Sun-sil scandal

Seo Cheon-seok, a pediatric psychiatrist, said that South Korean President Park Geun-hye appears to have Ripley’s Syndrome, a condition that involves confusing a false self for one’s actual self and trying to maintain peace of mind. Seo posted his psychological analysis of Park’s upbringing on his Facebook page on Nov. 6, referring to Park as “she” without mentioning her by name.

“Given that she won’t even see her own family, she won’t be seeing me, either, which means that we’ll never know what kind of person she is. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about her. There are several clear facts that have come to light thus far through the media and most importantly through the story of her life,” Seo said.

Seo began his analysis by identifying three of Park’s characteristics: “First, she is intellectually vulnerable and not very good at expressing herself verbally. Second, she is unable to trust others in relationships, and she is afraid that others will see her weaknesses. Third, and despite this, she has trouble even taking care of herself, which has led her to rely on a small number of people she trusts despite her second characteristic.”

Seo argued that while some people believe that Park became this kind of person because of her parents’ unnatural deaths [her father, former President Park Chung-hee and his wife Yuk Young-soo were killed by assassins in 1974 and 1979, respectively], this alone is not adequate to explain her personality. “While this was no doubt traumatic for her, her parents died after she became an adult. Thus, their deaths are not adequate to explain her intellectual vulnerability,” Seo said.

at the Blue House press gallery

“Furthermore, a person who has been deeply wounded by serious trauma is unlikely to undertake the challenging task of running for president. The basic tendency of people with unresolved trauma is to run away. If she had overcome her trauma, she would have undergone inner growth. But I cannot find any evidence that she has undergone any major inner growth,” Seo said, concluding that trauma should not be regarded as an important factor in explaining Park’s psychology.

“I think her will to power was always strong,” said Seo of Park, who was active in serving as First Lady from a young age following her mother’s assassination. “It seems to be less about wanting power per se than about wanting to stay in a high position. She’s always wanted to be someone everyone respected, and she may have believed herself worthy of it.”

“Without Choi Sun-sil, she might have a breakdown, and I don’t think she would relinquish power easily,” Seo added.

While cautioning that his remarks were “just speculation and fiction,” Seo also used Park’s experience as a teenager to theorize about how her narcissism took shape.

“Her situation is similar to Ripley’s Syndrome in the way she maintains peace of mind by believing her false self to be the real one. The crucial difference is that she doesn’t need to actively lie to deceive herself and others as you’d find with Ripley’s Syndrome,” Seo said. “She’s in a very particular situation, where she spent her teens as the ‘First Daughter/princess.’”

“Even without systematically lying to others in order to ‘package’ herself, she had other people to package her,” he continued. “It was enough to make sure everything just looked plausible. She could maintain peace of mind simply by avoiding exposure and not letting her incompetence show.”

Seo went on to say Park may have found herself exploited by a “helper,” someone she “would have desperately needed as a person who wanted to stop growing and conceal herself, yet also wanted to realize accomplishments.”

“That was her own choice for her own sake - the price you pay for the desire to abandon maturity and remain at a level of infantile narcissism,” he wrote.

The post, stretching to over two full pages, finished with Seo noting, “Knowing about [Park’s] psychology doesn’t help in making political judgments. It’s just an occupational hazard of mine to keep stringing together these kinds of unprovable theories in my head.”

By Kim Mi-young, staff reporter

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