Welcome to indoctrination, a weekly conversation series about protecting yourself from systems of control. I'm your host, Rachel Bernstein.

Hi, everyone. Today on the show, we have Vanessa Riser, who's a mother, entrepreneur, life coach, and psychotherapist, specializing in narcissistic abuse.

This Riser is also a founder of the Rockland County Pride Center and a board member for the Center for Safety and Change.

And Vanessa recently ran the entire state of New York in a wedding dress to raise awareness for narcissistic abuse

and made international headlines. Here's Vanessa now.

I am very happy to welcome Vanessa to our show today because there's a lot to talk about. And because you're able to come at this subject with personal experience and also professional insight and expertise.

So I like being able to tackle things from different directions in that way.

And so if you don't mind taking a moment and just introducing yourself and talking a little bit

about what you want to talk about. And then we'll start the conversation.

So I'm Vanessa Reiser.

I am a licensed clinical social worker practicing in the states of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts.

I specialize in narcissistic abuse, which is an insidious form of domestic violence.

Started the practice last year.

The home location is in New York and have fortunately and unfortunately been thriving in my

practice because people are needing a lot of support for a variety of different reasons.

There are clinicians that work under me.

I have four clinicians that work under me. I have four clinicians that work

under me and they are kind of working with a lot of anxiety due to COVID, et cetera. I specifically

work with the clients that are narcissistically abused. Okay, very important. And yeah, I hear you. You know,

in some situations and in some careers, you know,

for being able to make a living, it's good to be busy. But it also is kind of a gauge about

what's happening in the world and how much of a need there is for a particular issue. And it makes an impact on therapists when suddenly

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