I've been researching this book (i.e., the one I've been researching) for so long now that I sometimes wonder if I'll ever write it. Actually, I'm a lot closer to the writing than I was a couple years ago, when I was so lost and emotionally hammered I couldn't tie my shoes, much less blog or write a book proposal. As I have partially documented these dark days elsewhere, I'll spare you the details. But the general shape of my intent for this next book was (insert much handwaving here) something about narcissism and something about the New Age and something about something that connected these two increasingly ubiquitous phenomena.

I could tell you that the deep ambiguity of that description is intentional; that what I'm really doing here is protecting my ideas so some unscrupulous plagiarist doesn't come along and rip off all my hard work and obsessive cogitation on these subjects, and beat me to market with the killer bestseller I've been planning lo these many years.

The truth of the matter is much simpler. I am merely confused.

However, as anyone who knows me can attest, I am not one to complain or become discouraged by such trifles. To me, the glass is always half full. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. A rolling stone gathers no moss. A stitch in time... Yes, always the optimist I. Plus, I've found, paradoxically, that confusion has been the best protection against the underhanded intellectual theft of my hard-won insights. If even I don't know what I'm thinking, how can anyone else? It's beautiful, isn't it? An elegant solution, if I say so myself, to an age-old problem.

And as long as I can write paragraphs like that, I need fear no slippage in my self-esteem -- another of the vast conurbation of concepts that have swum into my ken in this terminally troublesome period of my life, all of which I am attempting to stitch together into a sort of coat of many colors in which I will make my getaway under cover of invisibility and obfuscation such that the masses will be looking into the distance whence I've made my spectacular exit, mouths agape, jaws dropped full ambit, inquiring of each other: "Who was that masked man?"

Yes, well. Ahem. To get on with it then...

Another concept -- really a sweeping array of linked concepts in itself -- that I plan to work into this quilt, this fabric of alternate reality, is that area of re-emergent psychoanalysis known as attachment theory. It's originator, John Bowlby speculated early on that there were probably links between the styles of attachment he described and various personality disorders. Later research has borne this out bigtime.

Three developmental personality styles seem to be most associated with the fearful and dismissing dimensions of insecure attachment: antisocial, narcissistic and schizotypal...

Individuals with a narcissistic personality style are often characterized as conceited, boastful, and snobbish. They are often described as self-centered, pompous, impatient, arrogant, and thin-skinned. Their interpersonal relationships are often exploitative and irresponsible. They tend to lack empathy and use others to indulge themselves. ...family histories of those with a narcissistic personality style are often characterized by parental overevaluation and indulgence, with parental approval and affection often tied to personal accomplishments rather than the self.

I think of JonBenét Ramsey here, whose sole purpose in life -- as it was given to her to believe -- was to fulfill the avaricious beauty-pageant dreams of her mother and grandmother. Consider this neighbor's observation from Perfect Murder - Perfect Town: JonBenét and the City of Boulder: "The pageants were Patsy [Ramsey]'s gig. JonBenét was her alter ego. Patsy had the money, she had the costumes, and she had the kid. She could relive her own pageant thing. You got the picture right there. Patsy didn't have a sense of proportion about how this should fit into her child's life. What I saw on the pageant video... you don't do that to a six-year-old."

But continuing...

In general, the parental injunction they receive is "You are special, unique, and entitled to extraordinary rights and privileges." Because of the discrepancy between their inflated view of themselves and their diminished view of others, they tend to have a negative and disdainful working model of others. ... Although these individuals may behave outwardly with overzealous confidence, this is often a mask for the intense insecurity they often feel. Their caregivers give them the message that others owe them admiration and privilege. As this view collides with a fragile view of self, defense mechanisms that protect the fragile self-system are strengthened and their narcissistic behavior becomes more apparent to others. The primary feedforward processes associated with the narcissistic personality style include illusions of specialness, a disdain for other's views, and a sense of entitlement. These views further distance the individual from others, thereby increasing self-absorption and reinforcing narcissistic beliefs.

from: Developmental personality styles: an attachment theory conceptualization of personality disorders by Alissa Sherry
source: Journal of Counseling and Development, 22 September 2001
via: HighBeam Research
Copyright © 2001 American Counseling Association

All this by way of convoluted introduction to a book I ran across last night at the Boulder Barnes & Noble, my home away from home. Apropos of nothing much, it's the first book I've seen with a 2005 copyright date. As soon as I spied it on the shelf, I thought that Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion might return me to my roots, as it were, after so many side-trips into subjects as varied as (but to my mind all interrelated):

• Ayn Rand and her so-called "Objectivism"
• Nathaniel Branden, self-styled "Father of the Self-Esteem Movement"
• Abraham Maslow and his "hierarchy of needs"
• Esalen and the "Human Potential Movement"
• Ralph Waldo Emerson and his pernicious "Self Reliance" trip
• America's long-standing notions about "manifest destiny"
• the history of American eugenics
• Madame Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society
• JonBenét Ramsey and "parentification"
• the "therapeutic" valorization of pathological narcissism
• All things "spiritual but not religious"
• the occult roots of Nazism
• und so weiter...

Despite the seduction (for me) of the title -- combining, as it does, attachment theory and religion -- I wondered where this guy was at. I mean, was he one of these totally reasonable ecumenical types that I find exasperating to the point of going-postalism? So I had a little flip-through to see what I could see. The following inclined me to think better of author Lee A. Kirkpatrick's perspective...

It is well known that most (non-depressed) people tend to give themselves more credit for positive outcomes than they normatively deserve, be more optimistic about the future than is objectively justifiable, and think more highly of themselves and their abilities than is logically possible. It makes sense for evolution to have designed the self-esteem system with a positive bias, as a kind of self-deception that leads us to behave as if we were "better" than we are and thus induce others to consequently treat us accordingly. This bias gets deactivated, however, when repeated failure dictates that a frank reassessment is called for, as seen in depressed people who are "sadder but wiser."

Now that's what I call great comedy writing.

Unfortunately, Kirkpatrick seems to waffle around a lot, hemming and hawing about some abstruse philosophical crap clearly intended to defuse whatever offense he might be giving to those of deep religious faith. Me, I say nuke em all from low orbit and let God sort em out!

Evidently (and refreshingly), he has not always practiced this sleight of hand, as the following excerpt could hardly avoid giving the kind of offense I hold in such high... erm... esteem.

Kirkpatrick has published two longitudinal studies of religious conversion. In his 1997 study, 146 women readers of the Denver Post were surveyed approximately 4 years apart (times T1 and T2, respectively) about a variety of religious commitments. Of concern was whether different adult attachment styles predicted religious commitment. He found that when religion at time T1 was statistically controlled, those with an insecure-anxious or an insecure-avoidant adult attachment style were more likely than those with a secure attachment style to report finding a new relationship with God by time T2. Insecure-anxious subjects were more likely than those who had secure or ambivalent attachments to report having had a religious experience or a religious conversion during this time period. These results were interpreted as supporting the compensation hypothesis in attachment theory: God serves as a substitute attachment figure for those having difficulty forming human bonds.

from: The psychology of religion by Raymond F. Paloutzian
source: Annual Review of Psychology, January 1, 2003.
via: HighBeam Research
Copyright © 2003 Annual Reviews, Inc.