Getlen’s opus was a groundbreaking attempt to smear as much dirt as possible over the then-still-pristine pop princess. Smith’s was an industrious attempt at finding out who had won the battle for supremacy - the natural, fun-loving, friendly girl making loads of mistakes just like everybody else, or the iconic image, “The Britney”, who had always threatened to take over and suppress the inner woman. Dennis’ biography shows, with the benefit of another 4 years’ hindsight, that the struggle is still going on. With 400 pages to Smith’s 300, Dennis has a much broader canvas on which to paint his detailed portrait of a tormented soul.

Although the book is gentle and tender towards its subject, it is not noticeably biased in her favor. Dennis achieves this seeming contradiction by being kind-hearted and non-judgmental towards ALL of its main players, from Lynn and Jamie Spears through Kevin Federline to Sam Lutfi and Adnan Ghalib. He thus provides an almost unique object lesson in how to recount a lurid story of fame and celebrity while avoiding the depressingly predictable present-day need to put the blame on somebody for every incident that happens.

Where Getlen’s touchstone was the endless snark of the Hollywood gossip columnists and Sean Smith’s gimmick was an astrological attempt to divine Britney’s future, Dennis recruited one of LA’s most respected psychotherapists to give an expert opinion on an artist who has by now come to look like a walking textbook of anxieties, insecurities and inner conflict. Not that Smith’s tame astrologer Madeleine Moore got it wrong, predicting that Britney would be hospitalized in 2008 and would regain her appetite for performing in 2009!

Dennis admits that nobody really knows exactly what is and has been wrong with her, but he believes it has been developing for some time. And, with most of the book dedicated to a forensic examination of how Britney’s childhood, teenage years and adulthood have each contributed some strands of mental instability to her eventual breakdown, he used his psychotherapist in an interesting way. He made regular appointments, and, after periods of research, would sit on her couch, posing as “Britney” and answering on her behalf.

The factually historical account of Britney’s early years follows generic lines - indeed Dennis cites Sean Smith’s book as one of his sources. He would have done well to watch some of the many TV documentaries about her - “The Rise and Rise of Britney Spears” in particular. To his credit, Dennis went to enormous lengths to establish contact with knowledgeable sources and expert witnesses. However, the book’s chief objective is to provide some credible insights into Britney’s mind and personality and thus create a psychopathology for the Greek-tragedy aspects of her rollercoaster life. The result is a less balanced depiction of Britney the person than that created by Sean Smith.

Dennis’ readily admitted unfamiliarity with his subject becomes evident in his handling of the chronology and causal pathway of her transition from child star, respected as freakishly talented, to ambitious late-teenager. soon to become a global phenomenon. He manages to make her contract with Jive sound more like a misjudgment that turned out lucky than a piece of inspired talent-spotting. Jive VP for A&R Jeff Fenster’s remark that “the demo song wasn’t even in her key” somehow becomes “she sang off-key”, and he manages to omit completely Fenster’s key explanatory remark to Sean Smith: “Her vocal ability and commercial appeal caught me right away so I signed her.”

Dennis is on much stronger ground in his efforts to throw a searching light on more recent events. For example, Tony Barretto’s evidence to the custody hearing apparently came as a such an ambush to Britney’s lawyers that they were in no position to cross-examine him. As a result, his evidence was allowed to stand, and to taint Britney’s character thereafter. But Barretto admitted under intense questioning by Fox News’ legally trained interviewer Greta van Susteren that he had never seen Britney take drugs and that she only used alcohol occasionally. None of this fitted with the Commissioner’s conclusion that she was a “habitual, frequent and continuous” user of controlled substances, and Van Susteren added “I’m deeply disturbed.”

It has also been a regular feature of gossip reporting on Britney to depict her as dirty and slovenly. Gossip mags used to report that her house was full of piles of dog poop and other filth. However, Dennis made contact with a female reporter whose job for 18 months was to tail Britney. She told him that paparazzi were occasionally invited into Britney’s house. “Not once did any of them see her drunk or using drugs”, she said. “The only oddity they observed was Britney frantically cleaning. They expected a party girl, but found a cleaner with OCD, wanting every surface to be spotless.” Although this vignette is rather touching, it is also quite disturbing.

The paparazzi who visited also noted that Britney relied on numerous prescription drugs to calm her, because, according to Sam Lutfi, “she sobs uncontrollably about losing her boys and falling out with her mom.” And later, Lynne Spears reported seeing Risperdol - an anti-psychotic used in the treatment of bipolarity and other mental health disorders; Seroquel - a sedating treatment for bipolarity, OCD and anxiety issues; and Aderol - a stimulant to aid concentration and alertness. Britney also took anti-depressants. However, none of these cured her agitation and chronic inability to sleep.

Dennis’ genuine concern for Britney’s mental health runs like a steel thread throughout the book. He works and works to tease out any possible explanations for her low levels of self-esteem and high levels of anxiety, and finds most of them in her childhood. Much more than her previous biographers, he talks to Kentwood people about her father, Jamie Spears. Everyone agrees that he is, at heart, a genuine, straight-up and basically good guy, but has had a few times in his life when his behavior caused great stress to his family. Incidents of severe alcoholism, fights and rows with Lynne and intimidating behavior all seemed to be triggered by the birth of each of his children.

And the frequent incidents of shouting and fighting between her parents created two typical behavior patterns within Britney. The first was to retreat to a comfort zone of singing and dancing where she could forget her anxiety, blank out all the chaos and anger, and create some kind of happiness-substitute. The second was to be a people-pleaser, always offering herself up to do whatever she thought her parents needed to be happy and not to fight. From this came her extreme deference to and reliance on authority figures who could tell her what to do.

The combined effect of these two powerful instincts is that Britney has no sense of personal identity, nor any clear idea what to do with herself, when she’s not performing. Even in her pre-meltdown period, says Dennis, “in her loneliness, she started to view the media circus as an arena for a daily performance where she was the star and the paparazzi were both supporting cast and audience”. Here is a girl who seems unable to survive on her own decisions about her career, her companions, her finances, her day-to-day behavior, even her appearance. It seems incredible that a 28-year-old not only needs, but is willing to submit herself to a conservatorship, as if she had the mental capacity of a young child. But the problem isn’t what are called “learning difficulties”. It’s how her mind works. It appears that she’s a whirlwind of energy, drive, desires, ideas, dreams and fantasies - but with no central “self” to attach them to.

Things began to go disastrously wrong immediately after Britney married K.Fed, fired her staff and began to take responsibility for everything upon herself. Her rebellious nature would have ensured a life of increasing chaos and entropy had her hospitalization under mental health legislation not provided her father with an opportunity to reimpose an external framework, held in place by shackles from which she could not easily escape. However, Steve Dennis’ view is that this is taking the easy way out and storing trouble up for the future. He’s on the side of the “Free Britney” campaign and feels that life away from performing (not just a somewhat quieter life away from the paparazzi) is essential to her developing a core personality and becoming a normally functional young woman.

However, nothing’s ever as simple as it looks. It may or may not have been desirable as therapy for a damaged soul to send Britney back out on the road again. But it’s certainly not clear that we should draw the conclusion that this was one of the cynical machinations of the legendary “Britney Inc.” Indeed, Wade Robson said that Britney was so excited and animated about the forthcoming tour that SHE enthused HIM. (Ultimately, however, he found the controlling conditions of the conservatorship impossible to live with.) We should also bear in mind the dilemma so neatly encapsulated in Emiliana Torrini’s song “Free”. “It shouldn’t hurt me to be free, it’s what I really need, to pull myself together. But if it’s so good being free, would you mind telling me why I don’t know what to do with myself.....?” Britney Spears was not built for sitting around doing nothing.

There’s anoher factor that adds to the complexity of the situation. Dennis quotes Robert Baker of the Millennium Dance Complex as suggesting that there were sound, practical imperatives for returning Britney to profitable activity: “If she didn’t go on tour, they could have been hit for around $100 million,” he says. “She was contractually obliged for another album and another tour - and there was a deadline.“ The lawsuits could have wiped her out. Which is ironic when one considers that (and here Dennis quotes Portfolio magazine) she makes around $75 million a year for the media, just by being Britney. In fact, they make more off of her when she ISN’T touring and IS going crazy not knowing what to do with herself.

Steve Dennis set out to try and understand what makes Britney tick, but his efforts ended in bafflement. “Happy versus sad, enthusiastic versus ‘not feeling it’. Crying one minute, laughing the next. Seeking an authority figure then looking to rebel. There are many inherent splits within the thoughts and moods that Britney entertains and one wonders what can quell her inner conflicts to bring her the balance she needs. It seems an impossibility to nail where she stands and what she truly thinks under the auspices of such a micro-managed brand and conservatorship.... Iconic fame like Britney’s does not diminish; her name will endure and will stand the test of time, just as her character has somehow withstood all that she has faced. But if she continues to be commercially flogged, promoted and over-hyped, then the danger is that the person inside will FURTHER diminish and become lost again.”

Robert Baker is optimistic: “She’s growing all the time, and is a lot wiser than the media give her credit for. Fame has been one of the contributors of her having to go through this thing. It destroys people but she’s strong enough to bounce back. I think many other people would have folded under the pressures she has faced. It takes tremendous strength and resilience to to go through what she has and still be able to go back on tour.” He went on to recount a conversation with Britney before her hospitalization, when she seemed to have no sense of direction. He reckoned Justin Timberlake was the last true ballast she’d had, and as he spoke, she turned to him and said “I’m the loneliest person in the world.” She was so tired of playing the person everyone wanted her to be. But, he said, she tries to figure it out every day, and would come out stronger.

Dennis’ tame psychotherapist added “After years of giving, I hope for Britney’s sake that she knows that she, too, deserves to receive what she seeks away from the industry. She seems a sweet girl who is generous to a fault, who gives open-heartedly. Britney has given since the day she was born, brought happiness and helped the lives of others. But who is actually giving for Britney the person? She needs someone to get her, love her, protect her.” It will be interesting to see if Jason Trawick is the man who can finally fulfil this role.

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