Welcome back to the place we find ourselves podcast. I'm Adam Young and today we're going to talk about narcissism.

My conversation partner is Chuck DeGroote. Chuck is a seminary professor, he's a therapist, and he has a book coming out about what happens when narcissism comes to church.

Because sadly, narcissism is more common among church leaders than we would like to think.

But how do you know if you're in a relationship with a narcissist? I mean what might that relationship feel like?

That's where we're going today. Thanks so much for listening.

Okay, I've got Chuck DeGroote on the line Chuck, it is good to see you.

Yeah, thanks for having me Adam.

Can you say a bit about where you are geographically and just what you're up to these days?

Well, I find myself in Holland, Michigan these days. For the last five years I've been a professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland.

But I've worn different hats. I'm a licensed therapist. I've been a pastor for a number of years. I've lived in San Francisco, in Orlando.

And so we've kind of been all over, but now we're in this great season of working with and training new pastors. And so it's really fun.

We're going to talk about narcissism today. You're currently doing some work you've written about narcissism particularly as it relates to church contexts.

And so I want to just have a conversation about, well, the language you use is when narcissism comes to church.

Not going to talk about narcissistic personality disorder, per se, but we're going to talk about what's it like to be in relationship with someone that has narcissistic tendencies.

So maybe to begin with, you just say a bit about what do we mean when we speak of narcissism?

Yeah, yeah, this is a word that we use, right? We use a popular culture. Sometimes we use about political figures. And there's a kind of caricature that comes with it that may be accurate and may at times be inaccurate.

I'm kind of developing it out both from kind of the psychological standpoint using what we call the diagnostic statistical manual disorder.

You know, so like the typical standard psychological definitions, a genetic grandiosity and a lack of empathy and things like that.

But at the core of it, there is this sense of this need to be in power or control and a real defensiveness, like a kind of like the ego defends against any vulnerability.

And so one who is narcissistic is one who maybe at some level is incapable of being vulnerable.

You're writing a book about this and authoring a book is a serious endeavor.

It requires a lot of time and cries a lot of energy. What made you invest so much time and energy? What is presently kind of driving you to invest so much time and energy and writing a book about narcissism in the church?

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