During a session on Thursday, one of my clients was talking about his feeling that he had “arrived” in his profession. In his mid-30s, he’s well-established now in a competitive field, earning an excellent income and finding himself respected and sought-after as an expert. As I listened to him, I recognized that I had never […]
On Success and Having Arrived Read More »
I haven’t been posting much lately because I’ve been focused on my book about narcissism, plus I just completed another article for The Atlantic, which you can find here. It’s about bullying as a kind of narcissistic behavior, linking the Richie Incognito story with the suicide of Rebecca Sedgwick and further thoughts on Lance Armstrong.
A number of site visitors took issue with one of my recent posts, largely because of the way I used the word narcissist. Most people use it as a synonym for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, so it’s understandable that those visitors heard me calling Ellen a bad name. But I use narcissistic in a descriptive sense
Another Everyday Narcissist — Me Read More »
During the first year or so after I launched this site, my post about narcissistic behavior and the lost art of conversation was always a reader favorite. One of mine, too. I thought of it this past weekend when we were dining at a restaurant here in Colorado to celebrate a friend’s 60th birthday. Passing
The Everyday Narcissist Revisited Read More »
First of all, I’d like to thank those of you who visit the site often enough to have noted my absence this past month and written to me with concern. It has been a trying time, in part because of unexpected challenges that have come along but also because I haven’t taken care of myself
Respecting Your Personal Limitations Read More »
The familiar plot of Cinderella gave me the opportunity to write about shame and narcissism, themes not traditionally addressed by other iterations of this classic fairy tale. Snow White, my current project, allows me to write about the experience of envy and jealousy, usually the most prominent feature of every version of the story: the
Envy for Your Children Read More »
It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of my first work of fiction in over 30 years. While it lacks the imprimatur of a mainstream publisher, I’m nonetheless proud. This re-telling of the classic fairy tale asks the following question: How would Cinderella actually have turned out if she’d grown up surrounded
Cinderella: A Tale of Narcissism and Self-Harm Read More »
I’ve written about narcissistic mothers in two earlier posts, one about my own (mostly bad) mother, and another that differentiates healthy parental pride from narcissistic over-involvement. In particular, I’ve talked about the struggle to find the goodness in mothers who largely failed their children. I focus on this issue not only because it comes up
The Narcissistic Mother Revisited Read More »
On Saturday, I made a short new video, making use of what I’d learned in media training. I felt very good about that video because I’d confronted some underlying shame and the related wish to remain invisible — that is, relying on a blank facial expression and little modulation in my voice in order to
Diary of a Shame Attack Read More »
Most people understand what free association means: to voice all thoughts, feelings and ideas that come to mind during a therapy session, without deciding in advance whether they’re relevant or “worth saying.” At the beginning of traditional psychoanalysis, clients are instructed to freely associate and occasionally reminded to do so as the treatment proceeds. We
Why Free Association is So Difficult Read More »