Narcissistic Personality Disorder
We know that a personality disorder is a way of relating to the world at large that constantly leaves us and the people around us feeling uncomfortable, shortchanged or downright unsafe.
Narcissistic personality disorder comes from a way of relating that we learn to make up for a fundamental lack of self esteem growing up. Because our sense of self is not stable, we try to have it stabilized by seeking the admiration of others around us.
This can lead to compulsive grandiosity or showboating, and also in the putting down of other people. In the former case, we feel better with admiring eyes on us, in the latter we feel better about our lack of self-esteem by demeaning another person.
Signs associated with NPD
It also leads us to treat other people in our lives as nothing more than an audience – either an admiring one, or a critical one, in the words of Dr. Elinor Greenberg. We gravitate to people for what they do for our status in the world – leading to superficial, one-sided relationships that last as long as the other makes us look good.
People with NPD also struggle to empathise with another person and themselves truly. They tend to push themselves to be perfect to defend against their self-hatred and the criticism of others because criticism is highly destabilising to them.
How I can help?
In therapy, we will work on understanding how your mood and self-esteem fluctuates with the feedback you think you’re getting from the world at large. We will help bring the deep shame that you feel into awareness so you can start to sit with it rather than over-compensate or bring other people down. With time, you will be able to empathize with yourself, flaws and all; and this will help you relate with other people authentically since you will look at them as more than a status enhancer.
How can we help?
Set up a 45 minute-session with me