Publisher's Synopsis
Narcissism is more than a personality; it's a system for exploiting love and a blueprint for avoiding shame. This unconscious pattern is the narcissist regime, and it shapes us more than we know.
'Killing Narcissism' is a book for those who want to look deeper and see the bigger picture. It has two aims:
1. To illustrate our inherent psychological traits which make narcissism possible.
2. To provide clear guidance on how we can stop narcissistic patterns from repeating in our lives.
After reading this book, you will:
- Understand how overexposure to shame and trauma causes a disconnect from reality and leads to grandiosity addiction; a compulsive need to be in control of and superior to others.
- Be able to recognize your unconscious tendency to 'split', or rather, to either worship (love) or vilify (hate) others.
- Understand how grandiosity addiction and 'splitting' combine to create narcissistic relationships.
- Become aware of the archetypes behind the figures in your life and how they subconsciously influence and control you.
- Get a clear picture of the narcissistic family; a closed environment where trauma and shame are repressed and replaced with a family 'doctrine.'
- Have an appreciation of how profoundly narcissistic family roles shape the people in it and help perpetuate narcissism.
- Become aware of the potential for such roles to be repeated in all facets of life; romantic relationships, social groups, organizations and spiritual groups.
Overcoming narcissism requires awareness of its patterns along with an inside-out approach. Seven paradigm shifts are introduced which help end the illusory power grab found in the narcissist regime:
1. Split to ambivalence: Learn to hold both love and hate for a person and to see them as they truly are.
2. Worship to personal power: Dispel the childhood belief that you can be saved by the 'perfect' person and take responsibility for your life.
3. Enmeshment to individuality: Learn how narcissists use enmeshment to control and choose to embrace a life of healthy boundaries.
4. Fight/flight to wholeness: Cultivate a state of calm after a lifetime of anxiety from PTSD brought on by narcissistic abuse.
5. Control to influence: Use personal power to set an example and give up the need to cling to or control others.
6. Clinging to falling: Give up the idea that playing a role will give your life meaning. Learn to embrace nothingness, and with that your personal power.
7. Doing to being: Embrace the power of healthy shame as a form of immunisation from narcissism by first purging yourself of toxic shame.
Through shifting your paradigms, 'Killing Narcissism' helps you find your way back to your true self and take back your power from the narcissistic forces which entrap you.
