Psychology in Seattle.

Hey deserving listeners, in this episode I'm going to talk about narcissistic personality disorder

and also domestic violence or intimate partner violence.

I get a lot of emails about narcissism, borderline, and relationship difficulties, but I think this email presents something that I haven't really talked about on the podcast before and it's something that I've treated a lot in my practice which is the relationship situation in which someone is

being very domineering and emotionally abusive and the victim of that abuse is starting to emerge from that abuse and

understand and see it for what it is which is abusive and how personality disorders often play a role in all of this.

And this emailer has a very interesting question because you know on this podcast I often promote empathy for everyone

including people with narcissistic personality disorder and what she's

asking is you know I I think my husband has narcissistic personality disorder, but, and from your podcast, it sounds

like I'm supposed to have empathy, but at the same time I want to leave this person.

And so let's get into that. But first let's introduce

the podcast. This is called Psychology in Seattle and I'm your host Dr Kirk Honda and I'm a

therapist and a professor. All right, let's read the email from this anonymous patron.

She writes,

Slowly over the last few months of therapy,

I have come to realize that my husband is emotionally abusive to me.

It has gotten progressively worse over time with him and

significantly worse since we had a baby a year ago. I went to therapy thinking

everything was my fault and that there was clearly

something wrong with me. By talking it out with my therapist I have realized that my

husband has been emotionally abusing me and making me feel like everything was my fault

and making me feel like something was wrong with me.

...