Len Cruz MD is the co-founder of the Asheville Jung Center, the Editor-in-Chief of Chiron Publications, and a contributor to A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump. He is a board-certified psychiatrist who has been in practice since 1981. He attended the University of Miami School of Medicine and completed his psychiatric residency training at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine where he also served as Chief Resident. He co-authored DSM-5 Insanely Simplified, he is a contributor to the forthcoming book, The Unconscious Roots of Creativity, edited by Dr. Kathryn Madden. He is married to Dr. Vicky Scott, a board-certified gynecologist who is board-certified in Integrative and Holistic Medicine. They have two young adult daughters. Len is an avid reader, he enjoys writing short fiction, and he is presently working on a non-fiction book about capitalism, globalization, environmental degradation and the oppression of poor and indigenous people.
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Great conversation!!
While the session is open and Americans are self-reflecting on narcissism and the national psyche, may I give some honest feedback as a foreigner? This will be brutal, so I apologise in advance, and if anyone objects, feel free to take a swing and I won’t protest.
So if I can expand “American Exceptionalism”, there seems to be some underlying beliefs that form the national American identity that seem to go unquestioned, which often deeply offend people abroad. There are two things in particular that repeat themselves on a daily basis.
In terms of content that is exported internationally, in your movies, speeches, and tv-shows the United States is continually referred to as The Greatest Country In The World (by Americans), and the US President is continually referred to as The Leader of the Free World.
These are titles Americans have given themselves – they were not handed down by the rest of us, nor was the US elected to this position somehow. It’s particularly egregious when the US takes some kind of a position that is globally frowned upon, and yet this nation is supposedly our “leader”.
When this Greatest Country In The World mantra keeps being said, we outsiders keep wanting to scream, “how?? and by what measure?”. And to be cruel for a moment [sorry in advance] but when Americans keeps referring to their presidents as Leader of the Free World, the feeling I’ve always had is that it’s more like the loudest guy in class that the rest of us roll our eyes at and tolerate.
I think a study on narcissism in the US is quite timely, because something I’ve noticed in interactions on places like YouTube in particular is that in recent years in the US, self-praise seems to have become culturally acceptable. People can call themselves something like “smart”, or “I’m great at…..” and nobody seems to bat an eyelid now. Whereas if you were to do this abroad, in most countries this would be culturally unacceptable and seen as extremely offensive.
Hopefully I haven’t been too harsh, but I’ve never heard these points mentioned within psychology circles re: the national psyche, and I would ask any American analysts in particular to keep an eye out for this phenomena and work it into their analyses.