After decades of trying to feel good about ourselves, why do we still hunger for meaning and significance?  
  
Glynn Harrison argues that self-esteem ideology has led us down a psychological cul-de-sac that risks causing more harm than good, and today's culture of narcissism and entitlement is the pay-off.  
  
Healthy psychological development and fulfilment come from seeing the self as part of something bigger. To achieve the sense of significance that we long for, we need a worldview capable of generating meaning and purpose. The Christian gospel calls us beyond the goal of self-esteem, encouraging us to stop judging ourselves, embrace our identity in God's big story and look outwards to the pursuit of his glory. This is the only sure foundation for biblically based optimism, confidence and personal resilience.  
  
'An important and timely book.' Christopher Ash

Glynn Harrison

The Big Ego Trip

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

The world of self-esteem

The big fix

The big con?

The big ego trip

The bigger-than-your-ego trip

1. BIRTH OF AN IDEOLOGY

The achievement game

The ego game

The inferiority game

The shrinking game

The attachment game

It's all in the mind, stupid!

2. TIPPING POINT

The march of science

Academic lift-off

The Human Potential Movement

Zeitgeist!

Romanticism redux

3. CATCH THEM YOUNG AND SELL IT HARD

The democratization of self-esteem

Catch them young

The many sides of self-admiration

Ego tracking

4. TO GOD YOU’RE BIG STUFF!

User-friendly Jesus

Perfect in his eyes

Pick-and-mix religion

Church for narcissists

5. DOES BOOSTERISM WORK?

Gorgeous in our own eyes

Finding the culprit

Tracking self-regard

Sex, drugs and drinkers

Bully-boys and mobsters

Weighed in the balance

6. THE AGE OF THE NARCISSIST

Health warning

Loveable me

Narcissism and entitlement

The low-down on high self-regard

Generation glum?

So what can we conclude?

7. KIDS PRAISE

Parenting a princess

Teacher's pet

Kids praise

Parent power

8. ALL ROADS LEAD TO PHILOSOPHY

The definitions muddle

The philosophic muddle

Albert Ellis – Think rationally about yourself

Martin Seligman – Be realistic about yourself

Jennifer Crocker – Look beyond yourself

A worldview issue

The journey that took us nowhere

9. WE DID IT MY WAY

You can rule the world

Gloriously ruined

We can (still) rule the world!

The many faces of self-admiration

The consequences of sin

Leaving behind the myth of self-esteem

10. AMAZED BY GRACE

He loves us because we are worthy?

He loves us and so we are (counted as) worthy

It's all about me, I mean...er...you

Amazed by grace

Think biblically about yourself

Shifting focus

I do not even judge myself

So stop judging yourself

The self-esteem treadmill: time to get off

Be compassionate towards yourself

11. HOW TO STOP JUDGING YOURSELF

You've got attitude

Changing attitude

Learning to dispute with yourself

Touching truth

Do you want to change?

Disputing a globalizing mindset

Sober as a judge: how to approach your strengths and weaknesses

12. THE BIGGER-THAN-YOUR-EGO TRIP!

Status and limited good

What is status anxiety?

Pecking orders

John the Baptist and the status game

Guests of a greater reality

Conclusion: above my pay grade?

The joy of the zone

POSTSCRIPT

NOTES

Introduction

1. Birth of an ideology

2. Tipping point

3. Catch them young and sell it hard

After decades of trying to feel good about ourselves, why do we still hunger for meaning and significance?  
  
Glynn Harrison argues that self-esteem ideology has led us down a psychological cul-de-sac that risks causing more harm than good, and today’s culture of narcissism and entitlement is the pay-off.  
  
Healthy psychological development and fulfilment come from seeing the self as part of something bigger. To achieve the sense of significance that we long for, we need a worldview capable of generating meaning and purpose. The Christian gospel calls us beyond the goal of self-esteem, encouraging us to stop judging ourselves, embrace our identity in God’s big story and look outwards to the pursuit of his glory. This is the only sure foundation for biblically based optimism, confidence and personal resilience.  
  
‘An important and timely book.’ Christopher Ash

In ‘The Big Ego Trip: Finding true significance in a culture of self-esteem’, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Bristol University, Glynn Harrison, presents the case against a whole mindset that has undermined society on an individual and community level. Pursuit of narcissism and self aggrandisement has, he shows, led us into a psychological cul-de-sac that offers no way through and does us more harm than good to stay there.

The only escape, he argues, is a complete U-turn onto a new highway towards healthy psychological development, and a route to fulfilment that comes from seeing ourselves not as complete in isolation, but as a part of something much bigger. The only way to achieve the sense of significance and purpose we long for, he explains, is to find a new worldview capable of generating that meaning and purpose.

For Harrison, only the Christian gospel - calling us beyond the goal of self-centred self-esteem, empowers us to stop judging ourselves, to find our identity in God’s bigger story and to embrace a worldview that looks outwards in pursuit of his glory. With good humour, and many helpful examples, he makes accessible the foundation of biblically assured optimism that lets us rebuild the confidence and personal resilience needed to make the change, and get off the Ego Trip’s dead-end road.

'This is an important and timely book. It is so helpful to have attitudes to self-esteem traced historically and culturally and then critiqued from the viewpoint of the Christian gospel. For me, one of the most valuable benefits has been to see how a human-centred cultural trend has crept unnoticed into the church. This has been a salutary warning to me personally. The book deserves to be widely read both by thinking Christians and also by those outside the Christian church who want a fresh insight into the counter-cultural surprise of the gospel of grace. I commend it warmly.' - Christopher Ash, Director of the Proclamation Trust's Cornhill Training Course  
  
'Glynn Harrison uses his vast experience in psychiatric practice and research to examine the cultural and psychological roots of the incredibly influential self esteem movement. He summarizes, digests, and evaluates huge amounts of research and explains what he is doing with humor and many helpful examples, thus making complex ideas accessible to anyone. His conclusions are startling and have big consequences for education, psychology and counseling. This is a superb example of a sharp Christian mind at work helping us to evaluate the ways we have been seduced and brainwashed by our culture.' - Richard Winter, Professor of Practical Theology and Counseling and Psychotherapist. Covenant Theological Seminary, St Louis, MO, USA

'When I read the introduction to this book, I thought I might like it. I don't - I love it. It is high time that the urban myth of self-esteem was seriously questioned and intelligently trashed. This book does that and more. The reader gains a well-researched, thorough analysis of the history of the love-yourself ideology and of its impact on culture and (sadly) the church. But the second half of the book answers the questions raised by this malignant ideology both theologically and practically. Brilliant Biblical uncommon sense for parents, youth workers, teachers, pastors and students of psychology everywhere.' - Ann Benton, psychology graduate, teacher, speaker and writer on family issues.

'This is an important and timely book. It is so helpful to have attitudes to self-esteem traced historically and culturally and then critiqued from the viewpoint of the Christian gospel. For me, one of the most valuable benefits has been to see how a human-centred cultural trend has crept unnoticed into the church. This has been a salutary warning to me personally. The book deserves to be widely read both by thinking Christians and also by those outside the Christian church who want a fresh insight into the counter-cultural surprise of the gospel of grace. I commend it warmly.'- Christopher Ash, Director of the Proclamation Trust's Cornhill Training Course  
   
 'When I read the introduction to this book, I thought I might like it. I don't - I love it. It is high time that the urban myth of self-esteem was seriously questioned and intelligently trashed. This book does that and more. The reader gains a well-researched, thorough analysis of the history of the love-yourself ideology and of its impact on culture and (sadly) the church. But the second half of the book answers the questions raised by this malignant ideology both theologically and practically. Brilliant Biblical uncommon sense for parents, youth workers, teachers, pastors and students of psychology everywhere.'- Ann Benton, psychology graduate, teacher, speaker and writer on family issues.  
   
 'This thorough-going critique of the self-esteem movement provides insightful analysis of the conceptual muddle and cultural deficit it has generated. As the sweep of Biblical teaching is applied to the central issues of our identity, in a fresh and contemporary way, we are pointed consistently to the grace of God as the only source of Christian recovery and resilience, not just as a theory but by many practical examples. Here is bedrock Biblical sanity for a confused and crumbling culture and a "must read" for every thoughtful Christian.'- David Jackman, past president of The Proclamation Trust  
   
 'Professor Glynn Harrison is a psychiatrist with an engaging sense of self-deprecating humor and the ability to explain complex psychological theories with a felicitous lucidity. In The Big Ego Trip he stands in the tradition of Hans Christian Anderson in showing that the new psychology

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