Does Julian Assange suffer from being a mama's boy?

In anticipation of their reunion last week, Christine Assange, Julian Assange's 59-year-old mother, declared, "I can't wait to see my son and to hold him close." Christine Assange arrived in London from her home in Australia while her son was still being held in solitary confinement in Wandsworth Prison. After seeing him, she said, "I'm connected back with him again. I've got the connection."

Now released on bail, Julian Assange, his mother and his entourage are spending Christmas together at the Suffolk manor house belonging to Vaughan Smith, journalist and founder of the Frontline Club.

It is clear that Christine Assange feels close to her son. But does the connection between mother and son hold clues to explain his obsession with computer hacking, with exposing secret information, and with the allegations of sexual assault made against him following a trip to Sweden in August?

Julian Assange never knew his father, whose identity remains unknown. What is known is that his mother had been fleeing from a former lover whom she said had been stalking her. Christine Assange's peripatetic lifestyle had only just begun.

A year after Julian's birth, Christine married Brett Assange, the director of a theatre touring company, and the family moved constantly throughout Julian's childhood. By the time Julian was 14 he had lived in 37 different towns, changing schools and sometimes being home-schooled.

Brett Assange recalls that his step-son was a "gifted child with an enormous ego" and that he was "deliberately treated like an adult" by his parents. He also remembers how Julian was often bullied at school for being a "nerd" and at a very young age was fascinated by equipment, taking it apart and putting it back together.

"Strangely enough," Brett Assange admits, "I always thought he would do something like this. He was always very independent and he certainly wouldn't take no for an answer."

By the time Julian was eight, his mother had re-married and gave birth to his half-brother. Three years later, in 1982, this marriage broke up and a custody battle ensued that prompted Christine Assange to go into hiding for the next five years with her sons.

The only stable factor in Julian Assange's early life was his mother. The fact that his mother's relationships with men tended to be fraught with conflict might have also made it difficult for her son to feel close to men or to identify with them positively.
 
At the age of 18, Julian fathered a son, Daniel, with a 17-year-old girl. They set up house together and it was during this time that Julian learned to hack into computers and the internet.

In October 1991, their house in Melbourne was raided by the police and he was subsequently charged with offences relating to computer hacking. His girlfriend fled with Daniel.

Shortly after their separation, Julian became severely depressed and was hospitalised for six months. History repeated itself. The couple embarked on a nine-year custody dispute that was settled in 1999, giving the mother sole responsibility for Daniel's upbringing.
 
Given this background, it would hardly be surprising if mother and son did not have a strong connection, especially during their years of hiding, but also perhaps in Julian's early childhood. His step-father's reference to his "enormous ego" suggests a child who felt that the world revolved around him, a "golden boy" idealised by his mother and "treated like an adult."

Although Julian Assange took his name from his step-father, there seems to have been no real father present in his life. Added to this was a vulnerable mother, needing protection from men, and the young Assange must have found himself in an impossible psychological corner.

Never having known his father, Julian may well have felt rejected by him, angry about the way he had treated his mother (at least in his mind), and possibly angry for leaving him to look after his mother. It is striking that Brett Assange admits that he went along with his wife in deliberately treating Julian "like an adult", suggesting that he did not assume a paternal role towards his step-son and was unable to provide that security for him.

Without parents who were able to set limits and recognise their son's vulnerability, there was no stopping Julian's omnipotent behaviour. As Brett Assange said, "He certainly wouldn't take no for an answer."

When we are infants we all experience ourselves as the centre of the universe. This illusion of omnipotence is necessary psychologically to protect ourselves from overwhelming experiences of helplessness and vulnerability and it is also necessary in establishing a core sense of self that is later modified by the limitations of external reality.

When the mother idolises her child, this early experience of omnipotence remains unmediated and the child's narcissistic bond to the mother is not broken. Mother and son continue to harbour an exclusive relationship from which the father is absent. This can lead in some cases to homosexual disturbances, with the son either turning to men as sexual partners or having fleeting relationships with women, as a way of defending against being engulfed by the mother.

Julian Assange's life's work has been to hack his way into the secrets of the internet, expose these secrets and in doing this to attack and attempt to destroy the reputation of established authority figures. Whatever we may think of WikiLeaks and the role it plays in uncovering global injustices, it is clear that Julian Assange is out to attack the father in the form of government and corporate authority.
 
Assange is also facing allegations of sexual assault where he is being accused of forcing two women to have unprotected sex. His apparent inability to accept a "no" from these women reveals not only a refusal to allow anything to get in the way of his desire to possess and control women but also suggests a lack of respect for women.

In an interview yesterday with John Humphreys on the Today programme, Assange explained, "...they found out that they were mutual former lovers of mine and that they had had unprotected sex and they got into a tizzy about whether there was a possibility of sexually transmitted disease." He went on to say, "It was a ridiculous thing to go to the police about."
 
Assange's fascination for exposing secrets can be likened to the desire to enter the forbidden zone of the parents' bedroom, to steal the magical phallus of the father, and to come between the couple. A journalist recently recounted meeting Assange at a restaurant in Sweden. The journalist was accompanied by his girlfriend.

Assange and the girlfriend went outside to smoke and when the journalist followed them outside to see what was keeping them he could see Assange whispering in her ear. When the journalist challenged Assange, "He dropped into a classic fighter's pose with his fists up." Assange subsequently seduced the girlfriend to spend the night with him. As the journalist commented, "Assange seemed to take pleasure in humiliating me."

While asserting his innocence, Assange accuses others around him of abusing power. He refers to an "espionage indictment made secretly against me in the US", of "investigations conducted in secret", and of a "smear campaign" launched against him. His accusations display a paranoia that only confirms his anxiety that his own attacks are being turned against him. Father is fighting back. He can then become the martyr son who is abused by the father - a hero and a victim at the same time.

But in considering these attempts to usurp the father in order to regain exclusive possession of the mother, we come back to the question of Assange's relationship with women. In his desire for unprotected sex, Assange is asserting his right to impregnate women - even against their will. But these are not women he has a serious relationship with. Like his unknown father, he too will presumably disappear.

Is this his attempt to turn the tables and to wreak revenge on the mother who loved him and left him? This may also explain Assange's breakdown when his girlfriend and mother of his son left him after his arrest. The trauma of this abandonment may have reverberated with an earlier trauma of being adored and then betrayed by his mother.

Is Assange caught in some unconscious enactment that is tragically leading him to self-destruction? He models himself as a hero fighting injustice but the real injustice may very well be buried in his psyche. ·