The narcissistic style is rooted in the individual's family and early childhood and is an endemic result of our culture's material perfectionism. It sacrifices fulfillment to driven achievement, self-worth to praise from others, and the joy of human connectedness to superficial, manipulative relationships. Johnson's carefully conceived integrative psychoanalytic developmental theory will enable therapists to make sense of the array of symptoms seen in character disorders and character styles so that an eclectic treatment approach may be pursued with the guidance of a unified theory. This is the second book in a series that began with Characterological Transformation .