Joseph Burgo > Quotes

“Because their shame is so much deeper and more agonizing, Extreme Narcissists will stop at nothing to avoid feeling it. In fact, almost everything they say and do is intended to avoid the experience of shame. The narcissistic defenses they mobilize against shame are so extreme and pervasive that they color everything about the person’s personality, relationships, and behavior, creating a kind of shell or armor against the threat of shame.”
― Joseph Burgo, The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age

“People with parents who consistently let them down emotionally and who failed to provide what was needed rarely feel safe in their adult relationships.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“If you get enough of what you need, you will feel grateful; if people around you understand your feelings and help you bear with them, then in later life, you’ll be able to do the same for others.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Narcissistic Parents often enlist other family members on their side, causing rifts and building alliances against a “bad” child. In other words, they may bully their own children. The victims of such behavior often describe themselves as a “scapegoat,” held accountable for all the family troubles. Their mothers often compare them unfavorably to a sibling viewed as “golden,” one child a loser and the other a winner. Narcissistic Parents tell blatant lies, too, painting themselves as victims and their children as heartless ingrates.”
― Joseph Burgo, The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age

“the issue of dependency lies at the core of the human experience. If our needs aren’t met during infancy when we’re utterly vulnerable and helpless, if our parents make us feel unsafe in the world from early on, it will shape our ability to trust and depend upon other people for the rest of our lives.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“1. Because of our lengthy, vulnerable childhood – where for so many years we rely upon our parents to meet our needs and protect us from the dangers of the world – the issue of dependency lies at the core of the human experience. If our needs aren’t met during infancy when we’re utterly vulnerable and helpless, if our parents make us feel unsafe in the world from early on, it will shape our ability to trust and depend upon other people for the rest of our lives. Consider”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“In my view, if you don’t understand how repression operates, real growth is nearly impossible since you’re unlikely to come into contact with that pain you’re warding off. Even if you’re able to overcome some kind of maladaptive behavior or thought pattern, you’re likely to develop another equally maladaptive strategy to keep the repressed at bay. Freud always insisted that unconscious material is “indestructible.” Just because you’re not consciously aware of how much anger you feel toward your father, that doesn’t mean the anger has disappeared. It will inevitably continue to make its presence known in covert ways – humorous little digs, for instance, or sarcasm.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Shame is the crippling legacy of an impoverished childhood, one of the most powerful and least understood emotions that drive us to rely excessively on our defense mechanisms.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“His depressed and self-absorbed mother had no room for her baby, and almost no capacity to love or nurture him; as a result, he grew up with little sense of self, no feeling of his worth and value as a person.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Those of us who have a hard time expressing anger with someone we’re close to will often displace it onto someone or something else,”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“The ability to weather one’s emotional storms, to get through one’s own experience and to survive, is the foundation of what we will later call self-esteem or self-confidence.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Beginning at birth, babies have powerful feelings and fears about the world in which they live. A big part of their parents’ job is to help them manage those feelings – to calm and make them feel safe, for example, or to soothe them when they hurt. If we grow up with caretakers who let us down, who don’t provide the emotional support we need, we will always have a hard time managing our own feelings.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Babies who come from such families never develop that fundamental sense of trust and safety in their world; they may be plagued by anxiety about what might happen. And instead of developing the self-confidence that goes along with trust, they may instead feel a deep sense of shame. This type of shame differs from later forms of shame which may result from shaming messages given by important figures in our lives.10 It differs from the kind of shame we sometimes feel for violating acceptable codes of social behavior. The shame resulting from that pervasive experience of being let down by our parents afflicts us at the core of our being; it gives rise to a feeling that we are somehow different from other people, defective or even deformed. I’ll discuss this type of shame in greater detail in Chapter Eleven.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Each of us needs to feel that we matter and have a place in the world; we need a sense of internal worth and to feel that the other people in our lives (our “pack”) value and respect us. When our early environment doesn’t instill us with this sense of individual worth and value, we’ll struggle with issues of shame and low self-esteem throughout our lives.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“If you have food or substance-related issues, you may be repressing or denying a different need, one connected to other people. If you feel little or no interest in sex, you almost certainly have repressed your desire. Likewise if you’re preoccupied with pornography, especially when you have a romantic partner or spouse, you may be denying your need for and dependence upon another person to gratify your sexual needs – you can do it alone! If you have a hard time reaching out to people, it may be that you find your own neediness unacceptable. People who tell themselves they don’t feel much need for friends, intimate relationships or sex are in denial.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Like all defense mechanisms, control may help us to manage unbearable emotions, but when it becomes too extreme or deeply entrenched, it creates an entirely new set of problems.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“3. Each of us needs to feel that we matter and have a place in the world; we need a sense of internal worth and to feel that the other people in our lives (our “pack”) value and respect us. When our early environment doesn’t instill us with this sense of individual worth and value, we’ll struggle with issues of shame and low self-esteem throughout our lives. Sam”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“These are signs that a psychological defense mechanism is no longer helping you, or is causing more pain than it was intended to cure. It means that you’re struggling with one or more of the three areas of primary psychological concern: (1) bearing need and dependency as an inevitable part of relationships; (2) managing intense emotions; or (3) developing a sense of self-esteem (as opposed to a sense of shame and a feeling that you are damaged). It also means you need to find more effective ways to cope, and the aim of Part III is to teach you how.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“blinding yourself to the emotional poverty of your childhood might mean you can’t see how that past plays a role in your unhappy marriage.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“speaking – entering into that person’s emotional experience – you have to be able to tolerate those emotions in order to empathize. When we don’t get enough of what we need, when those people we depend upon are unable to empathize with our feelings, we may develop a very limited ability to empathize with the feelings of others as a result.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“you aren’t actually to blame for the way I feel right now, but that doesn’t stop me from biting your head off, as if you were!”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“– lies we tell ourselves to ward off pain”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Rationalizations are fairly easy to spot ; but because they’re pervasive, built into our character structure, intellectualization and “thinking” are harder to identify.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“by others, it usually means they unconsciously struggle with very different kinds of feelings, especially anger and hatred.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“When we feel unable to tolerate the tension and confusion aroused by complexity, we “resolve” that complexity by splitting it into two simplified and opposing parts, usually aligning ourselves with one of them and rejecting the other. As a result, we may feel a sort of comfort in believing we know something with absolute certainty; at the same time, we’ve over-simplified a complex issue, robbing it of its richness and vitality.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Defense mechanisms are built-in mental habits; in order to grow, we have to do what we may not want to do in order to challenge them.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“We may also deny a feeling, especially if we’ve received cultural or parental messages that tell us such a feeling is unacceptable.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Do you sometimes feel superior to and scornful of other people, especially those who seem to have emotional difficulties?”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?

“Many people find great meaning in such philanthropic work, but when they rely upon it as proof of their own goodness, when they place undue emphasis on appearing a certain way and being viewed as a “good person” by others, it usually means they unconsciously struggle with very different kinds of feelings, especially anger and hatred.”
― Joseph Burgo, Why Do I Do That?