Can You Cure a Narcissist?
No Visible Bruises
Caroline Strawson
4.7 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 13 July 2021
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we will discuss a controversial topic - can narcissists be cured? To answer this, we will consider two antagonising positions, those who say it is possible, those who say it can't be done, and we will also look at the middle ground. Most importantly, we will focus on the things we can change in our relationship with the narcissist.
What You Will Learn In This Episode:
- The issue with labeling narcissists, ignoring the root causes of their disorder, and medicalising them
- The benefits of looking at the situation with compassion and curiosity to ourselves
- What is a narcissist’s main goal, and what triggers their behaviour
- How to change our focus from curing the narcissist to looking at our reactions
Although it might sound shocking to hear, a narcissist's primary goal is not to be abusive. Their main purpose is to protect their self-worthiness wounds, so they project their protector parts on their abuse victims. As they won't see or accept this, and they justify their actions, we can’t help them, but we can focus on how we respond to their behaviour, and how we let it affect us.
Resources:
- Join my Narcissistic Trauma Recovery Programme™ https://go.carolinestrawson.com/heal-the-trauma-of-narcissistic-abuse
- Interview with Professor Sam Vaknin, Author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited
- Join my Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/thriveafternarcissisticabuse
- Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinestrawson/
- My website: https://www.carolinestrawson.com/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the narcissistic trauma recovery podcast. I'm Caroline Strawson and I'll be sharing with you |
| 0:09.5 | awareness, understanding and education about the devastating effects of narcissistic abuse to help you thrive. |
| 0:16.8 | I want you to know that I've been exactly where you are and I believe you. |
| 0:21.3 | And this show is all about taking you from trauma to transformation. |
| 0:30.3 | So this is going to be a really, maybe even controversial one because every time I talk about this, I get lots of messages from |
| 0:39.6 | people saying, you can't say that and everything else. And I think this will be a really, |
| 0:43.3 | really good opportunity to explain maybe the misinterpretation of what people say and also |
| 0:49.8 | what I feel about it as well, because at the end of the day, I respect other people's opinion, |
| 0:54.7 | and obviously I hope other people can respect my opinion. It doesn't mean we have to agree |
| 0:59.5 | on everything. And that is, can narcissist be cured? Just let that land with you for a moment. |
| 1:06.7 | You know, maybe you've been victimized by a narcissist. And sure, like many of us who've been in that |
| 1:11.6 | situation, we go through that feeling of, can I do something about that? What can I do? And we often |
| 1:17.9 | have, you know, I use internal family systems in what I do. You know, we have those people |
| 1:22.3 | pleasing parts that come up, you know, maybe if I behave like this, my abuser, so we go into |
| 1:27.0 | that foreign response, maybe my abuser, so we go into that foreign response, |
| 1:27.9 | maybe my abuser will behave in a different way and minimize their behavior and everything |
| 1:33.3 | will be okay. It must mean I'll be good enough then. So I want to talk to you a little bit |
| 1:37.5 | about narcissism through a trauma-informed lens of whether we can cure somebody who is a narcissist. And the first thing I want to |
| 1:47.1 | say is really about what a narcissist is. Now, yes, we have this diagnosis that is in the DSM, |
| 1:53.5 | the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual, which is the mental disorder book that healthcare |
| 1:58.5 | professionals will use to diagnose lots and lots of disorders in there as well, |
| 2:02.5 | including narcissistic personality disorder, where they list nine traits. And if you have |
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