The classic New York Times bestseller, with a new introduction by E.J. Dionne Jr. When The Culture of Narcissism was first published in 1979, Christopher Lasch was hailed as a “biblical prophet” (Time). Lasch’s identification of narcissism as not only an individual ailment but also a burgeoning social epidemic was groundbreaking. His diagnosis of American culture is even more relevant today, predicting the limitless expansion of the anxious and grasping narcissistic self into every part of American life. The Culture of Narcissism offers an astute and urgent analysis of what we need to know in these troubled times.
Narcissism—an inflated view of the self—is everywhere. Public figures say it’s what makes them stray from their wives. Parents teach it by dressing children in T-shirts that say "Princess." Teenagers and young adults hone it on Facebook, and celebrity newsmakers have elevated it to an art form. And it’s what’s making people depressed, lonely, and buried under piles of debt. Jean Twenge’s influential first book, Generation Me, spurred a national debate with its depiction of the challenges twenty- and thirty-somethings face in today’s world—and the fallout these issues create for educators and employers. Now, Dr. Twenge turns her focus to the pernicious spread of narcissism in today’s culture, which has repercussions for every age group and class. Dr. Twenge joins forces with W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D., a nationally recognized expert on narcissism, to explore this new plague in The Narcissism Epidemic, their eye-opening exposition of the alarming rise of narcissism and its catastrophic effects at every level of society. Even the world economy has been damaged by risky, unrealistic overconfidence. Drawing on their own extensive research as well as decades of other experts’ studies, Drs. Twenge and Campbell show us how to identify narcissism, minimize the forces that sustain and transmit it, and treat it or manage it where we find it. Filled with arresting, alarming, and even amusing stories of vanity gone off the tracks (would you like to hire your own personal paparazzi?), The Narcissism Epidemic is at once a riveting window into the consequences of narcissism, a prescription to combat the widespread problems it causes, and a probing analysis of the culture at large.
The definition of narcissism can be a moving target. Is it an excess of self-love? Profound insecurity? Low self-esteem? Too much self-esteem? Because of the multifaceted nature of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), treating this disorder presents clinicians with a range of wholly unique challenges. Narcissism and Its Discontents recognizes the variable nature of NPD and provides a template for adjusting treatment to the patient rather than shoehorning the patient into a manualized treatment that may prove to be less effectual. This guide offers clinicians strategies, including transference and countertransference, to deal with the complex situations that often arise when treating narcissistic patients, among them, patient entitlement, disengagement, and envy. The authors provide a skillful integration of research and psychoanalytic theory while also addressing psychotherapeutic strategies that are less intensive but also useful-being cognizant of the fact that a majority of patients do not have access to psychoanalysis proper. A chapter on the cultural aspects of narcissism addresses the recent societal fascination with NPD in the discourse on politics and celebrity, particularly in the age of social media. Regardless of the treatment setting-psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, partial hospital, or inpatient--clinicians will find a wealth of approaches to treating a diverse and challenging patient population in Narcissism and Its Discontents.
Nationalism is unique in America. Our notions of superiority spring from visions of chosen-ness, mission and high destiny, frontier self-sufficiency and the triumph of the immigrant experience. Where is the line between benign patriotism and malignant nationalism, individual liberty and mass tyranny?
Nationalism is unique in America. Our notions of superiority spring from visions of chosen-ness, mission and high destiny, frontier self-sufficiency and the triumph of the immigrant experience. Where is the line between benign patriotism and malignant nationalism, individual liberty and mass tyranny?
Named "most anticipated" book of February by Marie Claire, Essence, and A.V. Club "…extraordinary and representative."—NPR "Drayton explores the ramifications of racism that span generations, global white supremacy, and the pitfalls of American culture."—Shondaland After following her mother to the US at a young age to pursue economic opportunities, one woman must come to terms with the ways in which systematic racism and resultant trauma keep the American Dream inaccessible to Black people. In the early '90s, young Tiffanie Drayton and her siblings left Trinidad and Tobago to join their mother in New Jersey, where she'd been making her way as a domestic worker, eager to give her children a shot at the American Dream. At first, life in the US was idyllic. But chasing good school districts with affordable housing left Tiffanie and her family constantly uprooted--moving from Texas to Florida then back to New Jersey. As Tiffanie came of age in the suburbs, she began to ask questions about the binary Black and white American world. Why were the Black neighborhoods she lived in crime-ridden, and the multicultural ones safe? Why were there so few Black students in advanced classes at school, if there were any advanced classes at all? Why was it so hard for Black families to achieve stability? Why were Black girls treated as something other than worthy? Ultimately, exhausted by the pursuit of a "better life" in America, twenty-year old Tiffanie returns to Tobago. She is suddenly able to enjoy the simple freedom of being Black without fear, and imagines a different future for her own children. But then COVID-19 and widely publicized instances of police brutality bring America front and center again. This time, as an outsider supported by a new community, Tiffanie grieves and rages for Black Americans in a way she couldn't when she was one. An expansion of her New York Times piece of the same name, Black American Refugee examines in depth the intersection of her personal experiences and the broader culture and historical ramifications of American racism and global white supremacy. Through thoughtful introspection and candidness, Tiffanie unravels the complex workings of the people in her life, including herself, centering Black womanhood, and illuminating the toll a lifetime of racism can take. Must Black people search beyond the shores of the "land of the free" to realize emancipation? Or will the voices that propel America's new reckoning welcome all dreamers and dreams to this land?
American social critics in the 1970s, convinced that their nation was in decline, turned to psychoanalysis for answers and seized on narcissism as the sickness of the age. Books indicting Americans as greedy, shallow, and self-indulgent appeared, none more influential than Christopher Lasch’s famous 1978 jeremiad The Culture of Narcissism. This line of critique reached a crescendo the following year in Jimmy Carter’s “malaise speech” and has endured to this day. But as Elizabeth Lunbeck reveals, the American critics missed altogether the breakthrough in psychoanalytic thinking that was championing narcissism’s positive aspects. Psychoanalysts had clashed over narcissism from the moment Freud introduced it in 1914, and they had long been split on its defining aspects: How much self-love, self-esteem, and self-indulgence was normal and desirable? While Freud’s orthodox followers sided with asceticism, analytic dissenters argued for gratification. Fifty years later, the Viennese émigré Heinz Kohut led a psychoanalytic revolution centered on a “normal narcissism” that he claimed was the wellspring of human ambition, creativity, and empathy. But critics saw only pathology in narcissism. The result was the loss of a vital way to understand ourselves, our needs, and our desires. Narcissism’s rich and complex history is also the history of the shifting fortunes and powerful influence of psychoanalysis in American thought and culture. Telling this story, The Americanization of Narcissism ultimately opens a new view on the central questions faced by the self struggling amid the tumultuous crosscurrents of modernity.
There is much heated rhetoric about the widening gulf between Europe and America. But are the US and Europe so different? Peter Baldwin, one of the world's leading historians of comparative social policy, thinks not, and in this bracingly argued but remarkably informed polemic, he lays out how similar the two continents really are. Drawing on the latest evidence from sources such as the United Nations, the World Bank, IMF, and other international organizations, Baldwin offers a fascinating comparison of the United States and Europe, looking at the latest statistics on the economy, crime, health care, education and culture, religion, the environment, and much more. It is a book filled with surprising revelations. For most categories of crime, for instance, America is safe and peaceful by European standards. But the biggest surprise is that, though there are many differences between America and Europe, in almost all cases, these differences are no greater than the differences among European nations. Europe and the US are, in fact, part of a common, big-tent grouping. America is not Sweden, for sure. But nor is Italy Sweden, nor France, nor even Germany. And who says that Sweden is Europe? Anymore than Vermont is America? "Meticulous, insistent, and elegant." --John Lloyd, Financial Times "A must-read...filled with intriguing facts that add nuance to what can often be a black-and-white debate." --Foreign Affairs "An exhaustive and enthralling catalogue of our commonalities that begs a reconsideration of just what it means to be European or American." --Publishers Weekly
Presents an informative, lucid and clinically useful account of pathological self-absorption and its deleterious effects upon capacities for concern, love, work and morality. Rather than simply addressing individual psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, the text also elucidates such subjects as the treatment of narcissistic patients in intensive pschiatric milieu, group therapy, schema-focused therapy and couples therapy.
