Showing results by author "Joseph Burgo" in All Categories

Encounters with embarrassment, guilt, self-consciousness, remorse, etc. are an unavoidable part of everyday life, and they sometimes have lessons to teach us - about our goals and values, about the person we expect ourselves to be. In contrast to the prevailing cultural view of shame as a uniformly toxic influence, Shame is a book that approaches the subject of shame as an entire family of emotions which share a “painful awareness of self.”

This is a self-help book for people who don't usually buy self-help books. Instead of offering cognitive-behavioral techniques for dealing with anger, or affirming strategies to boost self-esteem, this self-help book adapts the basic methods of psychodynamic psychotherapy to a guided course in self-exploration, highlighting the universal role of defense mechanisms in warding off emotional pain.

In today's social media and selfie-obsessed culture, we are living in an age of narcissism - and a society that often celebrates this potentially harmful trait rather than understanding it as a psychological disorder. Scientists are beginning to learn that narcissism exists on a spectrum - much like autism - and most of us exhibit some mild narcissistic tendencies.

Richly illustrated with clinical stories from Burgo's 35 years in private practice, this self-help book also describes the myriad ways that unacknowledged shame often hides behind a broad spectrum of mental disorders including social anxiety, narcissism, addiction, and masochism.

Young Devianna must flee her village before anyone discovers she is Vacillian, a freak of nature who unpredictably shifts back and forth between sexes. The civilization of Messano was long ago decimated by a plague which left most people void of "fellow feeling” while dooming a few rare mutants such as Devianna to pariah status. If they find her out, the villagers will stone her to death.

These three novella-length tales explore psychological themes latent in the classic Grimm versions. Rather than presenting two-dimensional "good" heroines pitted against "evil" step-mothers, Grim portrays fully realized characters grappling with shame and self-doubt, suffering at the hands of mothers best thought of as narcissistic in modern terminology. Due to their dark themes and some graphic sexual material, these tales are not for the faint of heart and are unsuitable for children.