Starting from Dave’s post about Self-Harm, I tried to unpack how narcissism has crept into our culture and what it’s symptoms are: posts, here and here.
In short, the cultural condition of Narcissism is the preoccupation with the self which distorts one’s functional relationship to reality (my definition).
What answer is there to someone who has replaced the Self-Other relationship with a Self-Self relationship? What can take a person away from using the world around them as a mirror? How can we lift people out of the pit which keeps them trapped inside their heads? What hope does the Christian have to offer a world of people who are fast becoming disconnected from reality?
I believe that the Gospel – the good news – of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only true place of healing for person who is crying out for truth, beauty and goodness. The greatest weapon against narcissism is reality, and Jesus Christ is the only person who can open eyes to what is REAL. This is the starting point, and really, it is the only starting point. Without the shed blood of Christ, there can be no true and lasting healing.
Now, if the crux of the issue with narcissism is the loss of the Self-Other relationship, I want to suggest three key issues that must accompany our solution:
1) The Reality of God
As Francis Schaeffer used to say, there is an infinite-personal God who is there. The one who is completely other reverses the locus of our attention. This is a radical shift in thought in the sense that it is a return to the personal radix, God. True worship cannot exist in a self-centered cosmos, but a God-centered one.
2) The Reality of Man
There is a clear Creator-Creature distinction between God and man, and this is important. For man is wholly derived from and dependant on God (“in whom we live and move and have our being” Acts 17:28). We are rooted in his existence.
Futher, we are created in his image (Gen 1:27) are thus are meant to reflect Him. Thus, who we are meant to be isn’t primarily derived from others around us (nor the advertising industry!) but from God Himself! It is only from the right standpoint outside of ourselves that we can truly find ourselves.
3) The Reality of Community
Since we are intended to image the Trinitarian God who is community, we are intended to live in community. It is only when we are living in community that we can truly be human the way God intended.
Which is why I believe that we need to make concerted efforts to foster community. Our modern, consuming society provides a framework which works against real, other-person-focused community and we need to work against this. In our homes, churches, schools, friendships, workplaces – we need to seriously think through what is required if we are to be in a community where we can “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Rom 12:15).
We need churches to be places where we can truly show love – not just have great teaching, nor lots of numbers, nor lots of ministries, nor miraculous signs and wonders, nor even hollow community just for community’s sake! But Christ-centered, loving family churches.
I could say so much more, and this is a very feeble attempt at an answer. The Prophet Isaiah wrote in the 53rd chapter, that by the wounds which afflicated Jesus Christ - we are healed. This side of heaven, the healing will be impartial, yet substantial. By coming in filthy rags to the foot of Jesus, God says in the 55th chapter of Isaiah that your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Jesus Christ undertook the least narcissistic of all acts, and gave his Self up for Others. Here’s a beautiful prayer from the Book of Common Prayer that you might like to pray:
“Almighty and eternal God, so draw my heart to you,
so guide my mind, so fill my imagination, so control my will,
that I may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated unto you.
And then use me as You want and always to Your glory and the welfare of Your people
through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”
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3 comments
Dave Miers says:
June 11, 2008 at 11:29 am (UTC 10 )
this is the best article yet!!
good stuff earngey.
love the 3 points.
peaceout
Mel Fung says:
July 11, 2008 at 6:48 am (UTC 10 )
Hello Mark. This is Mel Fung.
(How did I get to read this blog? Someone who knows I have an interest in narcissism sent it to me.)
I love this post about narcissism, especially from a theological perspective.
I think you are spot-on regarding the antidote for narcissm. Reality is the best (only?)cure.
May I comment from a psychology perspective?
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) occurs in a very minute percentage of the population: less than 1%. It is when the personality is characterised by an overwhleming self-focus. Whereas most people are able to see themselves and see other people as separate humans with their own thoughts, needs etc, the NPD-person really just sees himself and other people are objects. Hence, the NPD’s sees the world as revolving around them. Valuable objects (those people that the NPD will spend time with) are only valuable in terms of comfirming and building up the NPD’s self-image. Other objects may as well not exist.
For the NPD-person, the whole world is interpreted in terms of what it says about their ‘self’ (sense of self, identity, knowledge of who they are). For example, a simple flash of eye-contact from a passerby may be mulled over for days, and stored away in the NPD’s mind as evidence that they are extremely attractive and everyone has their eye on them (they are the centre of the universe, so of course passersby would look).
The narcissist has built up this self-image that he is completely wonderful, special, unique. That is why anger occurs when they do not receive the admiration that they ‘deserve’. That is why they get jealous when others receive admiration: it is a threat to their belief that they are IT.
People who are in relationships with NPDs regularly describe the NPD as ‘sucking’ the life out of them, like a vampire. The NPD is always hungry to draw out admiration, attention, applause from the people around them.
However, as self-obsessed and self-loving as the NPD seems, it can be surprising to learn that NPDs know that some they are empty inside. In times of great volunerability, when their defences are down, some can admit this.
The reason they do seek admiration all the time, and the reason why they are self-obsessed, is that they have no solid, real knowledge that they are precious human-beings. They have to constantly seek out admiration and evidence about themselves so that they may know that they are significant, valuable.
So the NPD is quite refective of the state of human beings in general (no irony intended). What makes a human being worthwhile? Some people seek out fortune, power or fame in order to make themselves ‘worthy of existence’. Some people carry their heads up high “I am a good person” in order to justify that they are valuable and defend their right to exist.
That is why I agree with your statement that reality, which is only presented in the Bible, is the only cure for this.
We are given object statements and evidence by God himself that we are valuable. His Son died for us! What more evidence do we need?! Therefore, we do not need to constantly seek out admiration from others. We do have to depend on the feedback of others as our source of value.
God, the most unique, special being, tells us we are valuable. This is not dependent on what we do, since we are saved by God’s grace. Our value is determined by Him, who is never-changing, completely good and all-powerful. For those religious people who work hard in order to please God, and earn their ‘right to exist’: how are they much different from the NPD? For their image of themselves is dependent on their works as judged by this ‘god’, just as the NPD’s self-image is dependent on how well he elicits admiration from the world.
In therapy, the main approach to treating NPD is to teach them that they are valuable and acceptable, no matter what they do. This can take many, many years (or never). The good therapist will still make a distinction between what is good and bad, right and wrong, and still draw boundaries, but they are to never reject the NPD-patient. If the therapist can offer this unconditional love, how much more powerful is God’s offer of love? How much more powerful is God’s love in providing a stable self-image for humans, and hope for the NPD?
mark says:
July 11, 2008 at 3:06 pm (UTC 10 )
Mel, that is wonderfully wise and helpful. THANK YOU for letting us know about this sickness from a psychological perspective – I don’t think I’d find a more informative yet simple explanation anyway.
What have you have described so clearly points out the difference between the cultural and clinical conditions. Even 1% is a figure which staggers me. And the symptoms of NPD themselves are simply distressing. What a hard thing it must be for those who struggle in this way.
It makes me so sad when I contemplate what it means to miss out on how valuable we are in God’s sight. He truly, deeply and purposefully loves us and wants us to know it.
If anyone who suffers from a narcissistic sickness reads this I do pray that this deep love of God would penetrate to the soul.
And also I lament to think of the times when we as believers functionally live as if we are the centers of the universe. Apart from the clinical condition itself, the cultural condition creeps close to our heart’s door every day.
Psalm 130 (which I’m preaching on at church tomorrow) embodies the cry of all of us who experience entanglement in the depths of the waters of life. I would mention to anyone who reads this post and feels the pinch of either the clinical or cultural narcissism that this Psalm would be a wonderful cry to read.
So Mel, thanks for reminding *all* of us the true to reality Other who is the love of God personified. Our Saviour, Christ.
In the Lamb,
Mark