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Adult children of narcissistic parents are a deeply wounded group. Growing up, they experience profound violations of trust and an ongoing heightened stress response that wreaks havoc on their health and well-being. When we talk about parental child abuse and neglect, we are talking in large part about personality disordered parents, in particular those who fall within the highly volatile Cluster B category, which includes Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopathy). Because of their mix of emotional reactivity, myopic self-focus, lack of empathy, entitlement, and an exploitative view of human relationships, narcissists abuse others as a matter of course. When they are your parents, you are in a world of hurt.
So it can be disastrous when the therapeutic community is not adequately trained in personality disorders or in the complex trauma that results from the neglect and abuse of narcissistic families and relationships. Following are some common mistakes that can happen in the treatment of people struggling with fallout from narcissistic abuse.
1. Assuming all parents ultimately love and want the best for their children.
While most of us would like this to be true, it is a fact of the human condition that some parents not only do not love their children but objectify and exploit them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and/or sexually.
2. Encouraging clients to work things out with their narcissistic parents.
If there is one global truth about people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), it's that you cannot "work things out" with them. Narcissists do not genuinely care about or take responsibility for how they hurt others. Encouraging clients to be vulnerable with or confront their disordered parents will backfire.
3. Declining to acknowledge personality disorders because they dislike labels.
Labels can be problematic or limited in their usefulness. But when it comes to narcissistic abuse trauma, recognizing the underlying personality structure of the abuser is necessary for understanding the profoundly traumatizing impact they have on their family members. As the saying goes, narcissism is a condition for which everyone but the narcissist seeks help.
4. Failing to recognize the attachment trauma at the root of clients' struggle with self-esteem and trust in relationships.
Narcissists lack the emotional regulation, empathy, and respect for boundaries that are necessary to provide secure attachment for a developing infant and child.
5. Focusing on helping clients make behavioral changes without acknowledging their trauma history.
Focusing on changing self-defeating behavior can be helpful, but if this is the emphasis of therapy it will not address the extensive trauma that gave rise to and still triggers dysfunctional coping styles. Moreover, failing to acknowledge clients' trauma history reinforces the invalidation and gaslighting they have experienced at the hands of their disordered parents.
6. Missing or pathologizing the addictions that often develop in clients with complex trauma.
Children of narcissists become hypervigilant in response to the volatile environment at home. Addictions are a common attempt to manage the unbearable default hyperarousal that defines daily life for many.
7. Encouraging clients to invite narcissistic parents or other family members into therapy and failing to recognize their pathology.
This is an all-too-common experience of people with narcissistic parents, especially those who go on to partner with narcissists and seek marriage counseling. A defining feature of the narcissistic personality structure is a well-cultivated public persona or facade that is designed to impress, charm, persuade, seduce, win favor, or otherwise manipulate people into their way of thinking. Therapists cannot allow themselves to be manipulated by abusers.
8. Failing to identify patterns of complex post-traumatic stress.
As opposed to PTSD, which results from a traumatic experience such as living through a natural disaster or being the victim of a crime, CPTSD results from ongoing, repeated trauma. Good information now exists about the constellation of symptoms of complex trauma. Psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and coaches owe it to their clients to fill in the gaps in their education and training.
9. Assuming clients are exaggerating their experiences.
The selfishness and cruelty of narcissistically disordered people, particularly those on the malignant/sociopathic end of the spectrum, is difficult to comprehend for those who don't have firsthand experience with it. However, human history and current events offer endless examples of it. Unless we are willing to acknowledge this reality, our denial makes us complicit enablers.
10. Taking a superior or authoritarian stance that mirrors the dominance-submission dynamics clients experienced with their parents.
Sadly, some complex trauma sufferers are treated to an environment in the therapy room that resembles the abuses of power they grew up with. When this happens, it reinforces their trauma and makes it that much harder to heal.
