Customer Reviews

Narcissism and Intimacy: Love and Marriage in an Age of Confusion

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This book is more of a therapist's guide to dealing with a few particular narcisstic marriages. The only thing this book does is to discuss certain narcisstic personalities in a marriage situation. That's about as far as the author takes the topic. Narcissism is only talked about in a marriage setting, not in terms of any love or relationships outside of a marriage. While the author does give some interesting examples and does well comparing and contrasting narcisstic and non-narcisstic personalities, the examples are few and are very particular to certain types of marriges and are hard apply to anything else. The author also doesn't give any clues on how to go about changing narcisstic patterns if you're stuck in them, which is what I was hoping to find when I bought the book.

A defining dimension of pathological narcissism is the inability to foster and maintain intimacy. Intimacy is not only feared - it is despised because it is perceived as 'common' and 'degrading'. The narcissist idealizes his sources of narcissistic supply and then habitually discards and devalues them. This book is instrumental both as a somewhat iconoclastic introduction to narcissism and as an anatomy of the frustration that is life with a narcissist. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".

I read any book about narcissism eagerly, but this one disappointed me. The title "Narcissism and Intimacy" implied to me that this book would explain the frustrating and psychologically devastating maze that is life with a pathological narcissist. It didn't. Maybe because it is a book more about therapy than real life experiences, I found it murky and did not teach me anything new about the subject. Usually I find it heartening to read accounts of the impact of the narcissist on the lives of their significant others, but I really got nothing out of this book. I also got the idea the author was discussing regular narcissism, a personality trait, as opposed to pathological narcissism, a personality disorder. If you want to read a great book that will explain everything you want to know about pathological narcissism, read Sam Vaknin's book "Malignant Self Love", which is long and a little expensive, but really the ultimate book on the subject and worth every penny. If you want something shorter and less expensive, try "When Your Perfect Partner Goes Perfectly Wrong" by Mary Jo Fay.

This book starts with lot of myths related to entitlement,autonomy,romantic love,gender myths,marriage. Recognizing some amount of narcissim in all relationships, does not make it seem so very pathological...

The book arrived a lot slower than I expected, but it was in good condition, which made up for some of my impatience. I purchased it after listening to my friend's excitement for days about it. I was a psych major in college, and expected a lot more. But this book does contain helpful information for couples and it gives good explanations of various forms of narcissism. That, in itself, will enlighten the average seeker in this arena.

This book has absolutely changed the way I view myself and relationships. The second half is less helpful for personal growth (much more therapist-specific), but the first part is - wow, totally perspective changing. This book will help you figure out the self-other boundary and how crucial it is for relationships. Not just for married couples, and not even for those in relationships - I read it as a single lady. "Narcissism" here isn't the egotistical, over-confident and arrogant narcissism, but the narcissism where we see the world within the lenses we ourselves have developed, and view everyone's actions as radiating towards us. In other words - no one is out to get us, they are just living their own lives! Ahhh just read it for yourself!

I could not get into this book at all........... the other book I bought was so much better. Sorry.

I feel that this book will help both men and women understand not only themselves but their spouse better. All of us have varying degrees of narcissism and in order to love someone we need to learn to control our own needs for the betterment of the two as one and the one we love. This book helps with giving one a better understanding of how we can do that and what may be holding us back from really experiencing true love and intimacy.