Some psychoanalytic thoughts on the rapper Eminem

A shining example for young people with personality disorders?

I want to share with you some thoughts on the rapper Eminem. Unfortunately, I don’t know him personally, but sometimes I like to listen to his music. I saw his film “8 Mile” about the beginning of his career and I have also read some of his lyrics.

As far as I know he grew up without a father and lived in a trailer park with his mother and, later on, with his younger brother. He was exposed to this mother, who suffered from the Münchausen syndrome by proxy. Through this contact he and his brother were sick several times.

As I  understand his Detroit American slang, in my opinion, he made improvements developing a complicated relationship with his mother. In the song “cleaning out my closet”, from the album “The Eminem Show” (May 2002) he settles the account with his mother in a very hostile and degrading way. He accuses her and makes her responsible for a lot of things that were hard for him and things that made it difficult for him to find his way in his own life.

On the 5th of November 2013, the “Marshall Mathers LP 2” was released. While listening to the song “Headlights”, it seemed to me, that he must have had some kind of therapy. I’m assuming a psychodynamic one, because his view of his mother chad hanged dramatically. He apologizes for “cleaning out my closet” and regrets having done harm to her. He is able to thank her for being his mom and dad, understanding that she really did her best to raise him and his brother. Nonetheless he knows, it is better to love her from a distance and he doesn’t want her to have contact with his children.

Young people in my private practice often know about Eminem and his songs. They like him, especially the ones, who themselves suffered from complicated circumstances while growing up. I often have the image of the amygdala firing when listening to his music and his. more often than not, angry voice. Being traumatized leaves scars. Maybe other traumatized people spontaneously understand his angry voice and songs because they know what he is talking about. Maybe he and his process could be a shining light, a successful example for some of these patients, that it is possible to overcome hatred and contempt. It takes time and it is a long and a difficult process, but with hard work it is possible. When they give up those feelings and develop ideas of understanding and forgiveness, and subsequently reconciliation with the important people in their lives and, more importantly, with themselves.

While watching the film “8 Mile“ you can become an eye-witness to the process of integration. You can monitor how Eminem comes to respect unloved weak parts of himself and integrates them.  At first, he does not want anybody to know that he again is living in the trailer park with his mother. He wants to alter his self-representation. He makes other people see him as stronger and more independent than he is, rather the image of himself that he would like to be/have. But in the final rap battle he succeeds to stick to himself with all his mistakes, weakness and unloved parts. He himself tells everybody that he is living 8 miles away in the trailer park with his mother, that he has been slapped by his rap opponents. A friend, now an opponent, having sex with his girlfriend. His friend unfortunately shot in his own leg and he, a white person, among loads of black people in the pub. He wins this rap battle because all that could be used against him was taken into account in his self-portrayal (self-representation).

Dr Dorothe Türk (MD)
Fachärztin für Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie
Psychoanalytikerin (DPV, DGPT, IPA)
Gruppenlehranalytikerin (D3G, GASI)
Psychonkologin (DKG)
info@praxis-tuerk.de
www.praxis-tuerk.de