Hypocrisy Unmasked - (New Imago) by Ronald C Naso (Hardcover)

About the Book

Hypocrisy Unmasked aims more broadly to situate the phenomenon of hypocrisy within a postmodern framework, explaining it as a compromise fashioned by an embodied agent struggling to adapt and flourish amid moral ambiguity and uncertainty. Because morality ultimately is subject...

Book Synopsis

Hypocrisy Unmasked aims more broadly to situate the phenomenon of hypocrisy within a postmodern framework, explaining it as a compromise fashioned by an embodied agent struggling to adapt and flourish amid moral ambiguity and uncertainty. Because morality ultimately is subjective, hypocrisy can no longer be conceptualized as an objective property of behavior or an empirical consequence divorced from the belief systems in which the agent is embedded. For this reason, this book argues that hypocrisy is neither inherently vicious nor virtuous. Instead, it is more usefully regarded as a condition of our humanity, one that speaks deeply to the conflicts and competing interests that define who we are.

Review Quotes

Dr. Ron Naso presents us with an intriguing and highly original exploration of the phenomenon of hypocrisy. A psychoanalytically oriented psychologist, Naso asks us to consider hypocrisy without 'collapsing' it into psychopathology. He draws on psychoanalytic and philosophical texts to explore the sources of hypocrisy in dissociative mechanisms which function to avoid shame at the expense of morality.

Rather than succumb to the accepted yet simplistically negative definition of hypocrisy, Dr. Naso has unmasked the intricacies of purpose and context, then reformulated this designation in the best postmodern tradition. The result of his efforts is a stunning book demonstrating originality, creativity, nuance, and keen scholarship. This book makes a significant and welcome contribution to the discussion of shame and dissociation for both clinicians and academics.

Through striking clinical examples and painstaking analysis, Naso documents hypocrisy's emergence as a form of compromise against the backdrop of ambiguity and moral dissonance that virtually defines postmodern sensibility. Masterfully exposing the vital pull of the field without negating individual agency, he nests hypocrisy in a search for attunement that goes far in explaining its ubiquity in human affairs and its enactment in the consulting room by client and therapist alike. Hypocrisy Unmasked illuminates the intersection of two-person psychology and contemporary ethics in ways that will enhance our capacity to negotiate moral uncertainty, both in our patients and ourselves.

About the Author

Ronald C. Naso, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist who has been practicing psychotherapy and conducting neuropsychological evaluations for over twenty years. He is currently on the consulting faculty of the Child Guidance Center of Southern Connecticut, where he teaches and supervises in the Doctoral Internship and Postdoctoral Fellowship programs.