Literary interpretation has considered the myth of Icarus as a consequence of excessive ambition.

In psychology, there have been synthetic studies of the Icarus complex with respect to the alleged relationship between fascination for fire, high ambition, and Ascensionism. In the psychiatric mind, features of disease were perceived in the shape of the pendulous emotional ecstatic-high and depressive-low of bipolar disorder.

Henry Murray having proposed the term Icarus complex, apparently found symptoms particularly in mania where a person is fond of heights, fascinated by both fire and water, narcissistic and observed with fantastical or far-fetched imaginary cognition.