Why Is It Always About You?

The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism

By: Sandy Hotchkiss, James F. Masterson - introduction M.D. M.D.

Narrated by: Amanda Carlin

“A practical and accessible book about one of the most prevalent personality disorders of our time.” —Drew Pinsky, M.D.

In this groundbreaking book on narcissism, clinical social worker and psychotherapist Sandy Hotchkiss shows you how to cope with controlling, egotistical people who are incapable of the fundamental give-and-take that sustains healthy relationships.

Exploring how individuals come to have this shortcoming, why you get drawn into their perilous orbit, and what you can do to break free, Hotchkiss describes the "Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism" and their origins. You will learn to recognize these hallmarks of unhealthy narcissism—Shamelessness, Magical Thinking, Arrogance, Envy, Entitlement, Exploitation, Bad Boundaries—and to understand the roles that parenting and culture play in their creation.

Whether the narcissist in question is a coworker, spouse, parent, or child, Why Is It Always About You? provides abundant practical advice for anyone struggling to break narcissism's insidious spread to the next generation, and for anyone who encounters narcissists in everyday life.

Good info for starters

The information provided was very useful, though having read numerous books on narcissism, it offered a “new voice” versus new insights for me. The one difficult thing almost made me stop listening (especially in the 1st couple of chapters)was the occasionally scratchy and shaking voice of the reader. It may have been an electronic audible issue that seemed to resolve as I stuck it thru the end.

It’s a fine book

Wasn’t really all that interesting, was surprised it didn’t really give any tools or action items to handle relationships with narcissists and was surprised when the book took a turn to a lengthy parental advice column. Was a bit shocked by the use of a racial slur so casually.

The reader sounded monotone and almost robotic at times.

Buy the printed copy

Good book. Really informative and well written. However, don't waste your time and money on an audio version. The narration is nothing short of terrible. The lady's voice is constantly shaking and frankly my car GPS speaks with more emotion. Seriously, she sounds more like AI than a real human being.

Started out good!

This book is informative. However has a lot of inaccurate information about NPD. The author mixes every day narcissism, collective narcissism and NPD interchangeably. Then in the last section they get all moralistic and preachy with Christian Nationalism. Which is narcissism. The irony is lost on this one. The author condemns perfectionism as narcissism, yet expects you to be a perfect human or you’re a narcissist. You can’t have it both ways. Also mentions the AA and Alanon cults as solutions to addiction. I’m disappointed.

Good text, sad speech

The performer's voice is quite robotic, I could have used Google text-to-speech feature with similar results.

The story is interesting and engaging though, one will notice many his own traits in described issues. Sometimes author makes narcissists look like the one and only evil on the planet Earth, but it's okay if taken with a pinch of salt.