Is Angelina Driven to Be a Compulsive Mother?

Though employable, neither woman had moneymaking careers when each turned to husbands and children to create a new image.

"This is really an independent way of cementing and giving her a foothold in another world that never has anything to do with the movie business," he said of Jolie who doesn't seem to mind the gossip and photographs of her children. "She lives for it. She's a brilliant saleswoman."

"She is a woman who wants to be beholden to no one," according to Casablanca, who maintains Jolie is "still working out what happened with her father" and is destined to leave Pitt.

"All that you see wrapping around her right now that implies cozy domesticity is deceiving," he said. "It's more of a wall for her right now. Obviously her engine is going to derail. I think she's going to derail more by her design and will actually finagle her way out of all this. But I fear Brad's going to be the little caboose she cuts loose."

"She won't get rid of the kids," he said. "She'll get rid of the man. She'll get bored being away from a movie that really defines her. [Having children] is a way of allowing Angelina to distance herself right now: 'I have kids to raise, I can't make too many movies and I have to be picky. She will get that leading Oscar. … She's a manipulator par excellence."

Meanwhile, psychologists say Jolie may, indeed, have a real spirituality to her that motivates her to help others.

"That happens being a mother and it's not pathology," said Honos-Webb. "It's a good thing, but it has to be balanced with everyday concerns and attending to your own health."

"In some ways," she said, "saving the world is easier than facing our own inner world of emptiness."