Chuck DeGroat
Auteur de When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse
A propos de l'auteur
Chuck DeGroat is an experienced Christian counselor, a pastor, and associate professor of pastoral care and counseling at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He's also the author of Toughest People to Love: How to Understand, Lead, and Love the Difficult People in Your Life - afficher plus Including Yourself. afficher moins
Œuvres de Chuck DeGroat
When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse (2020) 151 exemplaires
Toughest People to Love: How to Understand, Lead, and Love the Difficult People in Your Life -- Including Yourself (2014) 88 exemplaires
Toughest People to Love 1 exemplaire
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 6
- Membres
- 368
- Popularité
- #65,433
- Évaluation
- 4.1
- Critiques
- 4
- ISBN
- 11
- Langues
- 1
This is a much needed book for the church, especially during a growing awareness among Christians of the damage that can be done by abuse of power and authority. Narcissists in church leadership often are perpetrators of this type of abuse, and are far too often enabled by the people and systems around them.
DeGroat skillfully defines what narcissism is and is not, using current accepted definitions within psychology, although he uses his years of expertise as a psychologist to introduce new insights for understanding this personality disorder. For those who are fans of the Enneagram, DeGroat even dedicates a chapter to demonstrating how narcissism can exist in people in any one of the nine types. Perhaps most intriguing is his proposal that narcissistic tendencies have high representation among church planters and mega-church leaders. This is an important point that likely needs to be taken seriously by denominational leadership when assessing potential ministry candidates.
DeGroat's work provides support for those hurt by the narcissist, by helping them realize that they are not imagining their emotional injuries. At the same time, while DeGroat is trying to raise awareness of the church narcissism problem, he also is more optimistic than many that narcissists can be reformed (although this is a slow and painful process). In part this is based on his proposal that narcissists are deeply hurting people, who are unable to face their real selves. This dis-integration is what lies beneath their destructive behaviour.
I would have liked DeGroat to have provided more data to support this position. While I'm not opposed to this explanation, primarily because I respect his expertise, I tend to be a bit skeptical with approaches that claim a motivation for a psychological issue that appears opposite to the manifestation. Jean Twenge, for example, argues that narcissists are motivated not by poor self esteem, but by a deep infatuation with themselves. DeGroat does not quite cite poor self esteem as what gives rise to narcissism, but he does lean towards there being a shamed and frightened child beneath the narcissist's exterior. It would have been appropriate for him to provide more support for his position, even though this book is intended for a more general, non-academic audience.
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