Becoming the Narcissist's Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself (2024)

Psychoanalytic Psychology, 1987

Journal of Personality Disorders

Clinical Case Studies

Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2010

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is one of the most challenging clinical syndromes to treat in psychotherapy, especially due to the difficulties of establishing a good enough therapist–patient relationship. Countertransference responses to NPD can be particularly intense, frustrating, and difficult to manage, as is often reported in the clinical literature though not clearly supported empirically. The aims of this study were to (a) investigate the relationship between patients' NPD and therapists' responses; (b) examine the associations between patient, clinician, therapy variables and clinicians' reactions during treatment of NPD patients; and (c) provide an empirically derived portrait of countertransference with NPD. A sample of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists (N = 67) completed the Therapist Response Questionnaire to identify patterns of countertransference, the Shedler–Westen Assessment Procedure-200, and the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale to assess the personality pathology and psycho-social functioning of a patient in their care. The results showed that NPD was positively associated with hostile/angry, criticized/devalued, helpless/inadequate, and disengaged countertransference and negatively associated with therapists' positive response, regardless of patients' personality and psychosocial functioning. NPD patients with stronger traits of cluster B personality pathology tended to elicit more negative and heterogeneous countertransference reactions than NPD patients without these features. The countertransference patterns with NPD patients were not strongly influenced by the variables of clinicians and therapy, with the exception of clinical experience. Overall, the portrait of therapists' reactions to NPD provided a clinically nuanced and empirically founded description strongly resembling theoretical– clinical accounts. The therapeutic implications of these findings were discussed.

Abstract:Loving yourself is not a sin, but being obsessed with one‟s own happiness and letting others tosuffer is „Narcissism‟. This disease is unique as the one who is suffering from narcissism maynot realize that he is a „Narcissist‟ and in some cases a narcissist fails to cure his disease as herefuses to understand the suffering caused by him to others. A narcissist is dangerous to himselfand the society. He can be cured if he discovers of what he is suffering with and realizes thatonly he can heal himself .i.e. „Narcissists are the cure to their own poison‟.Keywords: Character disorder, ego-strengthening, Ego State Therapy, false self, hypnosis,hypnotic age progression, narcissism, personality

Fall, 2011

“No longer a victim, beyond a survivor, she is a “thriver” on the brink of a new life.She’s a new breed of woman moving on after abuse and she wants her revenge.Living well is her best revenge. She is pushing through her fears, finding positive energyin her life and forging a new future for herself and her children.”--Susan M. Omilian

Innovations in clinical neuroscience, 2011

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition appears likely to eliminate the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. There are significant problems with the discriminant validity of the current narcissistic personality disorder critiera set; furthermore, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition's narrow focus on "grandiosity" probably contributes to the wide disparity between low narcissistic personality disorder prevalence rates in epidemiological studies and high rates of narcissistic personality disorder in clinical practice. Nevertheless, the best course of action may be to refine the narcissistic personality disorder criteria, followed by careful field testing and a search for biomarkers, rather than wholesale elimination of the narcissistic personality disorder category. The construct of "malignant narcissism" is also worthy of more intense empirical investigation.

Object Relations-Focused Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, 2022

The current study examines the psychotherapeutic treatment of an early-20s Caucasian male diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. The patient was treated with 56 sessions of psychoanalytic psychotherapy utilizing an object relations approach. Treatment aimed at decreasing the patient's anger, anxiety, depression, and improving emotion regulation. Another focus of this patient's treatment was helping him gain insight into the nature of his unconscious predictions and interpretations of others' behavior in the hope that he may begin to experience relationships with greater emotional connection and less conflict. Treatment outcomes were measured using Reliable Change Index analyses, which indicated a significant reduction in anxiety, depression, anger, and emotion regulation difficulty between the beginning of treatment and the most recent session. The patient also demonstrated increased mentalization abilities and fewer anger outbursts throughout the course of treatment. During the sessions surrounding a therapeutic rupture, the patient's emotion regulation abilities worsened temporarily; therapy shifted during this time to a more supportive analytic framework. An object relations-focused theoretical background and clinical treatment implications are discussed in relation to this case.

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 2005

Claretian Publications, Bangalore, 2015

This research study is an attempt to engage two widely different models in an interdisciplinary dialogue and examine the ‘goodness of fit’ between them for reciprocal enrichment. The first, the Self Psychology of Heinz Kohut, is a contemporary psychoanalytic model which proposes a very useful theoretical and therapeutic framework for the understanding and the treatment of narcissistic disturbances or disorders of the self. The restoration of the self who suffers from narcissistic vulnerabilities is the therapeutic objective of Self Psychology. The second, proposed by the Institute of Psychology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, which we refer to in this study by the acronym, the ‘I.P. model’, is a theoretical framework with a Christian anthropological focus and a pedagogical orientation. This model proposes a therapeutic/pedagogic intervention method known as ‘Vocational Growth Sessions’ or VGS which aims at authentic spiritualization of the human and psychological struggle of the person seeking help and more specifically has the main objective of recovering the mystery dimension in the person. The research explores the basic postulates, the inherent anthropological vision, and the proposed therapeutic approach in Self Psychology and places it in dialogue with the anthropological vision, theoretical and therapeutic/pedagogic framework proposed by the I.P. model. In particular, the research focuses on the therapeutic objective of restoration of the self in Self Psychology and the pedagogical objective of recovery of human mystery in the I.P. model. The study points out the anthropological insufficiencies in the Self Psychology model and shows how it can be complemented and completed by the anthropological vision offered by the I.P. model. Furthermore, examining in detail Self Psychology’s claim that the narcissistic patient’s experience of the therapist as an empathically understanding mature selfobject leads to change and restoration of self, this study proposes that in cases of subjects with narcissistic vulnerabilities, the VGS proposed by the I.P. model could effectively adapt this therapeutic principle of self psychology which is based on empathy. The research study argues that in cases of persons who present narcissistic vulnerabilities, the restoration of the self goes before the recovery of the mystery dimension in the pedagogical intervention in VGS. Pointing out that narcissistic disturbances have become the predominant psychopathology of contemporary society and therefore could also be potentially present in those in priestly and religious formation, this study ends with a discussion on the potential benefits of applying self psychological principles to the context of formation of priests and religious who present narcissistic disturbances.Keywords: empathic selfobject, restoration of the self, recovery of human mystery, Tragic Man, Hopeful Man, Christian anthropology, narcissism.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

Four couple therapy first consultations involving clients with diagnosed narcissistic problems were examined. A sociologically enriched and broadened concept of narcissistic disorder was worked out based on Goffman’s micro-sociology of the self. Conversation analytic methods were used to study in detail episodes in which clients resist to answer a therapist’s question, block or dominate the development of the conversation’s topic, or conspicuously display their interactional independence. These activities are interpreted as a pattern of controlling practices that were prompted by threats that the first couple therapy consultation imposes upon the clients’ self-image. The results were discussed in the light of contemporary psychiatric discussions of narcissism; the authors suggest that beyond its conceptualization as a personality disorder, narcissism should be understood as a pattern of interactional practices.

FOCUS, 2013

Adolescent Psychiatry