This Is Not for You: A Psychologist’s Take on Logan Roy from Succession
By a psychologist who’s seen a few kings fall off their thrones
Let’s talk about Logan Roy — the gravel-voiced patriarch, empire-builder, and emotionally barren command center at the heart of HBO’s Succession. Watching Logan isn’t like watching a meltdown. It’s more like watching a glacier flatten a village: slow, cold, inevitable. He doesn’t explode so much as erode, taking everyone’s sense of self with him.
But beneath the scorn, the power plays, and the endless rounds of “You are not serious people,” there’s a deeply instructive case study in trauma, attachment wounding, and the psychological cost of being shaped by pure survival.
Empire Built on Ice
Logan Roy is what happens when a child grows up without safety and decides they’ll never feel powerless again. His childhood, hinted at with abuse, abandonment, and early hardship, didn’t just harden him — it froze him. He doesn’t connect. He controls.
This is a man whose emotional language consists entirely of dominance, shame, and manipulation. Vulnerability isn’t just unfamiliar to him — it’s threatening. Love is a liability. And parenting, for Logan, is less about raising children and more about forging successors. The result? Kids who are emotionally feral and perpetually auditioning for his approval.
If Logan were a therapy client (which, let’s be honest, would never happen), he’d be the type who stares you down in silence until you feel like you’re the one being evaluated. He doesn’t do feelings. He does leverage.
Trauma, With a Suit and a Helicopter
Logan presents a fascinating portrait of developmental trauma that calcified into narcissistic armor. We’re not talking about Instagram narcissism. We’re talking about the real deal: a fragile self-worth so deeply buried it’s indistinguishable from ego.
He’s not chasing love or connection — he’s chasing control. Because in Logan’s worldview, control is safety. And letting anyone too close is an invitation to be hurt, betrayed, or left behind (again). His cruelty isn’t random — it’s strategic. Keep everyone slightly off-balance, slightly afraid, and no one can hurt you.
There’s also a profound fear of irrelevance underneath it all. Logan’s legacy is his identity, and legacy requires an audience. The idea that the world might move on without him? Unbearable. So he clings to power, even when his body and mind are signaling it’s time to let go.
The Father Wound Multiplied
Perhaps Logan’s most lasting psychological impact is on his children. He doesn’t break them in obvious ways — he breaks them by never quite giving them enough to heal. One moment he’s offering affection, the next he’s withdrawing it. He breeds anxiety, rivalry, and dependency, all under the guise of grooming them for leadership.
This is textbook intergenerational trauma — not just in how pain is passed down, but in how it’s normalized. Logan didn’t invent emotional neglect. He just industrialized it.
What Would Therapy Look Like?
Let’s be clear: Logan would never willingly walk into therapy unless it was court-ordered or part of a PR cleanup. But hypothetically? A therapist working with him would need to be utterly grounded — zero flinching, no ego, and a long-haul approach.
The work wouldn’t be about “softening” Logan. It would be about exploring the origins of his armor and slowly, painstakingly helping him differentiate fear from power. A trauma-informed therapist might help him understand that his emotional detachment isn’t strength — it’s survival mode stuck on a loop.
But the deeper challenge would be grief. Grief for a childhood lost. For relationships ruined. For children who needed a father and got a CEO. Logan’s internal world is a vault of unprocessed sorrow. Accessing it would be the most radical form of rebellion he could ever commit.
Why We Can’t Look Away
We don’t root for Logan Roy the way we root for Carmy Berzatto or BoJack Horseman. But we’re compelled by him. Because we all know someone who became impenetrable in the name of self-preservation. And maybe, if we’re honest, we fear becoming a little like him ourselves — successful, feared, but utterly alone at the top.
Succession isn’t just about power. It’s about the emotional carnage left behind when power becomes a substitute for love. And Logan Roy? He’s the wrecking ball and the ruined building all in one.