The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America Book

Based on groundbreaking new research: widely respected addiction and behavior specialist Dr. Drew Pinksy's exploration of narcissism in celebrity culture'and how it is damaging our culture, our children, and our lives.

Britney Spears. Lindsay Lohan. Paris Hilton. Anna Nicole Smith.

Who are these troubled, and troubling, figures who dominate our national attention'celebrities, moguls, train wrecks? Why are we so deeply interested in their lives and loves, their endlessly repeated journey from rising star to inevitable flameout? In spite of extreme fame, fortune, and opportunity, why do their lives always seem so steeped in drama? And'most important'how are their lives changing ours?

In this shattering new book, authors Drew Pinsky and S. Mark Young offer an eye-opening new look at our celebrity-crazed culture-from what drives people to seek fame in the first place, to how our obsession with celebrity is changing the emotional landscape of America. Drawing upon an unprecedented academic study of celebrity personality they recently published in The Journal of Research in Personality (Sept: 06)'the first such study to collect in-depth research data from actual celebrity sources'Pinsky and Young explore the widespread prevalence of narcissistic behavior among celebrities from all walks of fame, from actors and musicians to comedians and reality TV stars. Their core finding was that individuals who become celebrities are more likely to have certain kinds of psychological damage'narcissistic personality issues, often rooted in childhood trauma, with attendant mood disturbances, melodramatic tendencies, and substance abuse problems'than average Americans. And those issues, in turn, lead to the private'and increasingly public-struggles of celebrities that ultimately command public attention.

Pinsky and Young map this terrain'but then press further, exploring how these celebrities' constant public exposure (in every sense of the word) is being modeled on a 24-hour basis to the rest of our culture'and especially our children. The American demand for celebrity gossip seems insatiable: Magazines like People, In Touch, and Us Weekly continue to grow at a rate of 50 percent per year; 100 million viewers tune into shows like Entertainment Tonight and Hollywood Insider every night; and gossip websites like perezhilton.com and tmz.com have exploded on the Internet and even spawned their own TV shows. Pinsky and Young argue that this ongoing real-life soap opera'with its daily cycles of bacchanalian drinking and drug use, wanton self-exposure and other pornographic behavior, and self-destructive excess of every kind'is doing serious and potentially long-term damage to children, adolescents, and adults alike.

With his insider access to celebrities of all kinds'many of whom he has treated'and his years of clinical work with issues of addiction, drug abuse, and other disorders, Dr. Drew Pinsky has a fascinating vantage point from which to assess this revealing cultural phenomenon, and a trusted voice that will bring the issue home to both parents and troubled teenagers.

I loved his first book: "Cracked", but this one did not quite measure up to that one.