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SS062 Shepherd & The Shrink Pleasure, Pain, and Self-Obsession: Identity Crisis Series

Welcome back to the Identity Crisis Series, in which we ask why we’re in an identity crisis and discuss what that looks like. In this episode, we talk about our third problematic identity: the self-focuser.

Today, we talk about what it means to be self-focused individuals. We note the roles of pride, shame, and guilt in this self-focus. We contrast humility and low self-esteem, and we talk about the confidence that comes with the knowledge that there’s something greater than you. We discuss what it means to be humble, and we explain why pursuing excitement can be a problem. We distinguish between pleasure and excitement, sharing how to identify the good kind of pleasure. We talk about what C.S. Lewis has to say about putting first things first, and we share why you shouldn’t be afraid of pain. We note that not all pleasure is good and not all pain is bad.

“Don’t look to other people to meet needs in your heart that they were never designed to meet. Even your wife or your husband or your kids or your parents--they make good people, but they make terrible Gods.”

- Dr. Matt Hook

This week on Shepherd & the Shrink:

The correlation between self-focus and depression
Humility vs low self-esteem
Why we can’t stifle our religious instinct
Why preoccupation with the self breeds preoccupation with pleasure
Why the purpose of life is not to avoid suffering; it’s to learn how to suffer
You’ll be a slave to something; why not Got?
Why man’s place is between the sacred and the profane
The stability of real love
Pleasure vs excitement

Resources mentioned

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Shepherd & the Shrink Podcast with your hosts Dr. Matt Hook and Dr. Martin Fletcher, the show where theology meets psychology. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

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062 | Pleasure, Pain, and Self-Obsession: Identity Crisis Series