Psychotherapy with a Narcissistic Patient Using Kohut's Self Psychology Mode

That's a good point. Narcissists have personality disorders that lead them to act as interspecies social predators. An empathetic individual acting through his Adult (via transactional analysis) would pick up on the zero sum transaction a narcissist wishes to engage in and would see their way out. This does not seek to harm the narcissist, simply to reduce the harm done to the empath. And yet the narcissist is harmed. Due to his focus on zero sum games he can only win if the other player loses.

And this is a good point! Bolded the best part: you are stronger than you realise. My friend, teamwork makes the dream work. Thank-you.

I think the xanatos gambit doesn't apply to social interactions. Most of the transactions happen under several layers of subterfuge each of which give the narcissist cover and provides him an out. Plus you can't control reality like you can fantasy.

You'd be surprised at how much of reality you can control if you hold the paradoxical idea that you both control what happens and you are controlled by what happens. You part of and seperate of the way. Bit of Zen there. Stuff's great. For internet brownie points, I'll toss in some stoicism too: the obstacle in the path becomes the path; what stands in the way becomes the way.

It depends. If the narcissist is a mother and the normal person is a child then they're more like dementors.

Forgive me if my assumption is wrong, but your post history and this comment leads me to think you had an abusive NPD mother. I'm sorry for your pain. However, this leads me down an interesting path: my father was classic BPD and abusive. This isn't about me, though.

  • Archetypal mother = Life Giver/Life Taker. The extreme negative is the extreme, clinical case of BPD.

  • Archetypal father = Protector/Tyrant. The extreme negative is the extreme, clinical case of NPD.

Perhaps, while rare, the opposite gender associated with the disorder is far more devastating in the full swing of things than the usual gender? Apologies for the potential sexism but... Is it because that these people are going against their very natures? They've somehow become, in essence, inhuman.

This does not cancel out my previous post of having empathy for them. This is to only highlight that it can be the most difficult choice to make.

/r/thelastpsychiatrist Thread Parent Link - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov