Shame: The Underside of Narcissism

Shame: The Underside of Narcissism

by Andrew P. Morrison

ISBN: 0881632805
ISBN-13: 9780881632804


Book Description

Offers a thorough and critically-minded review of the literature on shame, integrating major concepts from object-relations and self psychology to arrive at a new understanding of the phenomena.


Customer Reviews

Sam Vaknin, the author of 'Malignant Self Love', 08/15/2001
Shame on You
Shame and guilt - often experienced during childhood and early adolescence - are the two relentless drivers of the veering car of pathological narcissism. Narcissistic Shame is the experience of a humiliating Grandiosity Gap (the tormenting abyss between the narcissist's reality and his grandiose fantasies). Subjectively it is experienced as a pervasive feeling of worthlessness (the regulation of self-worth lies at the crux of pathological narcissism), 'invisibleness' and ridiculousness. The patient feels pathetic and foolish, deserving of mockery and humiliation. Narcissists adopt all kinds of defences to counter Narcissistic Shame. They develop addictive or impulsive behaviours. They deny, withdraw, rage, engage in the compulsive pursuit of some kind of (unattainable, of course) perfection. They display haughtiness and exhibitionism and so on. All these defences are employed primitively (or are primitive, like splitting) and involve projective identification. This book is the best study there is of the incestuous relationship of narcissism and pernicious shame. Sam Vaknin, author of 'Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited'.