Why Is It Always About You?

The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism

By: Sandy Hotchkiss, James F. Masterson MD - foreword

Narrated by: Amanda Carlin

Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

In this groundbreaking audiobook, 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. 

©2003 Sandy Hotchkiss (P)2019 Simon & Schuster

Beyond Useful -Going to relisten often

Narrorator is a bit robotic sounding but the utilitly of the material is vastly important

don't blame parents so much

too much focus and blame is put on parents, research shows cluster B, Axis II disorders are very strongly genetic

Typical subjects easily found on any media

The reading wasnt very good. And the book delt too much with the symptoms and characteristics of narc vrs encouragement o
f dealing with one.

great help in understanding the Narcissist.

helped to understand a wayward relationship. what I considered might be my fault had nothing to do with me

Fantastic book on Narcissism

i found the text to be fantastic, high resolution, very intricate, i recommend this book as an MA, AMFT in CA, graduated summa cum laude.

Most Irritating Reader

I could not get past the reader, almost like a computer simulated voice. Really irritating.

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.

Meh

I wanted to like this so much, but it’s basically an admonition of contemporary society (with a heavy dose of blame for parents/working mothers/any personal approach to spirituality that is not super traditional and structured). Very little insight and almost nothing actionable in real life. Wish I could get a refund. There are many other more helpful texts on this subject out there. Don’t waste your time here.

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.

Highly recommended

An incredibly interesting look at the psychology of family/relationships, in particular the descriptions of narcissistic traits and how they can impact people.

The narrator sounds like a robot

The narration really sounds like text-to-speech. She REALLY sounds like a robot. I went and double check whether it was an actual human and I was astonishing to found out that in fact she was human. Astonishing! I could have got the same by buying the eBook and listening to it via Kindle text-to-speech.

Good, but no as good as Toxic Parents

This book contains quite a few really helpful insights, but I'd recommend reading Susan Forward's Toxic Parents before reading this book.

Overall, I'm glad I read it, but the narrator, Amanda Carlin, has the most sleep inducing voice. I recommend listening on 1.5 speed.