Sigmund Freud said that success can corrupt you from the inside, in the broadest sense of the word, that someone can “die from success.” It’s a way of saying that sometimes the negative aspects of success outweigh the positive aspects, especially for those who have reached the peak of their careers. This hypothesis has been addressed in art, literature, the popular press, or modern science. The idea that success often places a high price on psychological, interpersonal, and physical well-being. “He was so rich he went lonely and crazy”: We’ve heard it a thousand times.

Were Freud and the many who claimed success accompanied by misfortune true? No, to date there is no evidence to support this theory. In fact, a new study further confirms this.

Study. Research published by psychologists Harrison J. Kell, Kira O. McCabe, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow Perspectives on Psychological Science It compared and compared 1,826 intellectually gifted individuals with their peers with worse careers in terms of psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and illness. It was concluded that those deemed “professional superior” were similar to or healthier than others in these metrics.

That is, successful careers were not associated with medical frailty, psychological maladjustment, or toxic relationships.

the importance of success. If we go to recent surveys, we see that the pursuit of success is a fundamental element in the lives of many people. In fact, multiple polls like this one from Gallup reveal that advancing their careers is “extremely important” to 54% of Americans. Or that’s from Pew Research, which suggests that over 60% of people aged 18-34 say succeeding in a well-paid career is “one of the most important things in their lives.”

stereotyped behavior. It is not only Freud who has questioned this phenomenon. The concept of “successful wreck” has been discussed in many different media and cultures for thousands of years. We’ve seen this through hundreds of fictional characters like Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play. Some historical figures such as Richard Nixon, Howard Hughes, Vincent van Gogh or Winston Churchill are possible candidates for characters “ruined” by their success.

Some historians say that Alexander the Great cried after conquering the known world and had nothing else to accomplish. And it is this phenomenon that reaches current popular culture: “With great power comes great responsibility,” our friend and neighbor Spider-Man told us. And Michael Corleone’s descent into hell in The Godfather gives us good clues in this regard.

What actually happens? Freud noted that success sometimes comes at a high cost. He explained that people sometimes get sick precisely when a deep-rooted and long-held desire is fulfilled in their minds. He didn’t stray from the road. Recent scientific literature has studied this phenomenon. This is what some psychologists like Steven Berglas call the “success syndrome”: hitting bottom when you reach the top.

In other words, it is the situation that develops when the rewards of success expose the person to many psychologically stressful situations. This makes you vulnerable to a variety of ailments, from depression and drug addiction to suicide. Physical symptoms of the syndrome he describes include loneliness, alcoholism, schizophrenia, anxiety, loss of appetite, and low self-esteem. Even the belief that genius is related to mental illness has been repeatedly examined in other studies. The term “Sylvia Plath effect” was coined to describe the high rate of mental illness that appears among famous poets.

More success, shorter life. Stewart McCann, a professor at Cape Breton University in Canada in 2001, wanted to go further. And he devised what he called the “precociousness-longevity hypothesis”: that people who reach the peak of their careers at a younger age tend to live shorter lives. How did you come to this conclusion? While researching the careers of American presidents, he noticed a strange pattern: Earlier presidents seemed to die sooner.

While the study doesn’t purport to explain a possible link between early success and premature death, McCann has come up with a few ideas: stress is the most likely culprit, and that the same factors that drive success also contribute to decline. That is, people who are successful early in life tend to have competitive and achievement-oriented personalities, but are not that good at focusing on their own health.

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