Think Again!

180 • Think Again: Transformation That Yields a Return on God’s Investment

I. “He advances through the corporate ranks not by serving the organization but by convincing his associates that he possesses the attributes of a ‘winner’” (p. 61). J. “Narcissistic patients ‘are afraid of not belonging to the company of the great, rich, and powerful, and of belonging instead to the mediocre, by which they mean worthless and despicable rather than average in the ordinary sense of the term.’ They worship heroes only to turn against them when their heroes disappoint them” (p. 84). K. “We seek reassurance of our capacity to captivate or impress others, anxiously searching out blemishes that might detract from the appearance we intend to project. The advertising industry deliberately encourages this preoccupation with appearances. In the twenties, ‘the women in ads were constantly observing themselves, ever self-critical. A noticeable proportion of magazine ads directed at women depicted them looking into mirrors. Ads of the 1920s were quite explicit about this narcissistic imperative’” (p. 92). L. “He extols cooperation and teamwork while harboring deeply antisocial impulses. He praises respect for rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself. Acquisitive in the sense that his cravings have no limits, he does not accumulate goods and provisions against the future, in the manner of the acquisitive individualist of nineteenth-century political economy, but demands immediate gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually unsatisfied desire” (p. 172).

M. “What says ‘you are not guilty’ says also ‘you cannot help yourself.’ Therapy legitimates deviance as sickness,