"Just when we had girded ourselves against the sociopath next door, Burgo alerts us to the narcissist across the street. What a neighborhood!" - The New York Times Book Review
A few weeks ago, just before I took a week's vacation, I did a radio interview with Jo Anne White of "Power Your Life" concerning the limits of psychological growth. We actually ended up talking quite a lot about the subject matter of my new book, so if this of interest to any of you, here's a link.
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11 comments
Very good interview, thanks for sharing.
Hi Joseph, thanks for sharing the interview. Waiting to read your book!
Interesting discussion. What struck me most was the idea of our actual absolute potential as human beings and how we relate to this potential in ourselves. It is very complex. I see around me many people who really do achieve great things through great discipline and are so inspirational (the Olympics is a great example). Yet there is often times a component of self hate or a lack of compassion or love that is virtually absent in many people who achieve greatness. The great balance in my opinion is achieving something (big or small) but getting there with an awareness of the many set backs, honoring the journey which includes so much failure and loving ourselves through it. This is so hard to do when someone has a sense of basic shame. Also knowing as you said, we can never be perfect (whatever that is). Maybe this “perfection” is the absolute acknowledgement and love of our very imperfection…our humanness.
I don’t know about “love” of imperfection, but I think the goal is to find the place where we can acknowledge our own shame and damage, take it in to account but still conduct our lives and behave in ways that lead to genuine self-esteem.
Dr. Burgo,
What is genuine self-esteem? How does someone conduct a life and what behavior leads to genuine self esteem?
I suggest you read my post about the difference between narcissism and authentic self-esteem.
Very interesting interview. I look forward to reading your book on defense mechanisms-I guess we will be able to order it on Amazon, in October.
Yes, it will be available on Amazon in both eBook and trade paperback editions.
I listened to the interview and am looking forward to reading your book. I’m hooked already with your insights on idealism. Thank you!
There’s an entire chapter on the subject of idealization and I’m hoping it will satisfy your interest. Thanks for listening.
Great J, I look forward to your practicing smiling much more often during both radio and video gigs than you might imagine useful. Warm Congrats, bd