When it comes to getting help for narcissistic abuse, there are plenty of “narcissists experts,” who tend to do more harm than help. It is important to be aware of them and never depend on them for your recovery.

Fake experts

A few months ago, a new client tearfully expressed her disappointment and extreme frustration with the online life coach she sought help from due to her codependency and narcissistic abuse.

Like thousands of other people seeking mental health and critical life skills services, she was unable to tell the difference between coaches or psychotherapists who prematurely or inaccurately described themselves as specialists or experts from those who made legitimate and accurate claims.

The most poignant, perhaps manipulative element of such self-described “gurus” is the exaggerated promise of long-term relief from exquisitely painful narcissistic abuse. “Successful” content producers willfully hide their lack of problem-specific education, training, and experience, all of which would qualify or disqualify them from being a self-help or narcissistic therapist.

Related: Are Narcissists Smarter Than Other People?

Perhaps the most effective strategy that the so-called experts rely on is their heroic, inspiring and heartwarming survival story on their pathological narcissism, and the high-level lessons they learned because of it.

Despite my respect and appreciation for life coaches and psychotherapists, I have noticed an emerging pattern of perverse incompetence from the subset of “internet famous” individuals who prematurely or unfairly describe themselves as experts in self-help and narcissistic abuse.

With increasing experience, these individuals became easier to identify, because their abuse of complimentary narcissistic or codependency-focused content on the Internet was closely associated with highly publicized professional services exaggerating positive outcomes.

MarketingFunnels

Attracting paying customers is often achieved through interesting, impactful, and impressive online content that, by design, entices people to explore your profitable service-based website. Financially “successful” false experts attract people to their programs or treatment through enticing and interactive websites, designed by experienced marketing professionals.

Another effective “hook” is strategically developed online content that is invisibly attached to a business plan, otherwise known as a marketing funnel. The marketing funnels that the fake experts rely on are often the brainchild of highly specialized mentors or paid internet marketers.

According to Christina Gillick, the primary goal of marketing funnels is to convert leads into customers. They successfully create a wide network to increase brand awareness, acquire as many leads as possible, and then nurture the potential customer through the purchase decision, which narrows at each stage of the funnel.

Without this marketing “golden egg,” these bogus experts would not be able to create profitable online mental health treatment programs or life coaching programs designed to lure victims of narcissistic abuse or Self Love Deficit Disorder/SLDD™ (the term I use for “codependent”) .

Therefore, vulnerable, gullible, and misguided people with remote self-learning disorder often fall victim to the enticing offer of promised help, marketing funnels, innovative payment options, and a lower price when compared to legitimate mental health services.

Related: Do Narcissists Have Selective Empathy?

Angry bully pulpit

Many of these “experts” dangerously and irresponsibly promote a pure “victim” position blaming the narcissist for the harm, while claiming complete innocence in any part of the dysfunctional “dancing” relationship. Such individuals even use their online platform as a judgmental and blaming “bullying pulpit” where they rage against narcissists while hurling angry vitriol and finger pointing, most of which is disguised as life-changing advice.

Sadly, such “educational” and “supportive” stories, tips, and warnings inspire hordes of SLDs (people with SLDD) to “take up arms” against their narcissistic captors. The futility of a defensive or aggressive challenge to the more manipulative and subtle narcissist is best summed up in George Bernard Shaw: “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, a pig loves it.”

Exaggerated promises

It is becoming increasingly clear that these self-described “experts” are building profitable businesses by providing inaccurate and, at times, fabricated descriptions of themselves and the services they provide. In addition, they persuade people to waste their valuable resources on their treatment programs or services by making exaggerated, unrealistic, and often patently incorrect promises of positive outcomes.

Potential clients who lack adequate financial, insurance, and/or transportation resources are more vulnerable to unrealistic promises of long-term or permanent relief. For individuals affected by personal, familial, cultural, and even societal stigmas to mental health, promising services from anyone other than a psychotherapist may be more attractive.

What does it take to become an expert?

Reaching true and verifiable expert status is not as self-determined as one might think. Regardless of a person’s profession, achieving forensic expert status requires that unequivocal global standards be met or achieved.

The following list summarizes the criteria that reliably interpret a legitimate claim to be an expert.

1. A college degree, certificate, and license in the individual’s area of expertise.
2. At least a decade or more of professional experience in the field in which they have declared an expert.
3. Possess reliable and effective skills/abilities that are recognized by their professional community as superior to the larger community.
4. Supervision, education and continuous training in their field of expertise.
5. Experiences and accomplishments that have been publicly validated by peers in their professional community to be of “expert” level.
6. Testimonials from legitimate and non-fraudulent recipients of their expert services.
7. Author of books, articles and/or research papers on the subject of their expertise.

Related: What Narcissists Think And What They Say

Manipulation and distortion

Because people with a self-distance learning disorder and narcissistic abuse are characteristically afraid of inquiring about a person’s background or promises of positive outcomes, the promising “expert” avoids accountability. It should be noted that many of the fabricated experts are not knowingly deceptive and manipulative, they are, with the most pathological variety, massively damaging trust and naivety suffering from narcissistic abuse and “Self-Love Deficit Disorder/SLDD™”.

The list below illustrates the pattern of planned manipulation, inaccurate representations of qualifications and capabilities, and unrealistic promises of relief.

1. The client desperately seeks help for SLDD or abuse.
2. Finding an inspiring and compelling source of information online that makes them feel understood, “visible,” and optimistic about ending their chronic suffering from narcissistic abuse.
3. An enlightened and passionately optimistic person describes themselves as an expert on the problems they most need help with.
4. They were tempted to call them because of their harrowing backstory / thrilling survival story.
5. Seduced by websites and portals that appear too professional and attractive to their “program”.
6. He believes testimonials are compelling and glowing.
7. They fell victim unwittingly to an invisible marketing funnel that unknowingly boosted their confidence in asking this individual for help.
8. Lured by seemingly low-cost or extended payment plans.
9. They eagerly participated in the “program” rich in promises, which could not help them solve the problem for which they sought help.
10. They stop participating when positive results are not achieved or when they feel inadequate because they are not able to reach them.
11. He did not consider attributing their “failure” to the program or the person providing its services.
12. Feeling ashamed and hopeless about their “untreatable” problems.

traumatic origin

Whether it’s a life coach or a psychotherapist, misrepresenting an individual’s skills and services can cause iatrogenic trauma. This trauma is simply defined as prolonged suffering and distress directly caused by treatment providers falsely claiming their abilities, and as a result, being unable to provide what the client/patient needs most; or being responsible for severely consequential treatment failures.

Online content generated by over-promising, false experts has the potential to trigger or activate painful memories with accompanying destructive and dangerous emotions and thoughts. As detailed in both the “Human Magnet Syndrome” and “Codependency Therapy” teaching materials, self-dependent or people with “self-love deficiency (SLD) severely limit and sometimes hinder their struggles with PTSD.”

For chronically lit SLDs who have been brainwashed to identify with implanted “narrative self” and contrived, isolated, deeply shamed problems, the risk of iatrogenic trauma is more serious and therefore harmful.

Hence, online services created that intentionally or intentionally trigger overwhelming and disturbing anger or shame, or disconnected memories, can be of great interest to unsuspecting SLD victims. For this reason, it can be safely assumed that seemingly innocuous content on the Internet may inadvertently provide “gasoline” as a solution to quelling an SLD’s lifelong immersion in a “narcissistic storm of abuse”.

The Fifty Degrees of Pathological Narcissism

After eight years of disappointing and heartbreaking experiences, I decided to try to solve the problem rather than bring attention to it. That’s when I put off writing my book The Codependency Cure™ while devoting eight months to creating an expert-level educational seminar series that was dedicated to accurate, clinically practical information and advice on pathological narcissism, narcissistic abuse, and a lack of self-love. Chaos and escape them all.

This ambitious educational project offers a counterpoint to the flood of overly simplistic, victim-oriented popular psychological explanations, “bad guy demonization” pronouncements, and unrealistic promises of relief. In determining the scope of content to include, I reviewed a great deal of information about pathological forms of narcissism, narcissistic abuse, and effective treatment programs for them. Furthermore, I updated over thirty hours of previous seminar material on these topics.

The title of this 3-day/18-hour seminar series is “50 Degrees of Pathological Narcissism.” Only accurate and clinically verifiable information about SLDD/dependency, narcissism, and narcissistic abuse was included. In my unique content, I have only combined concepts, theories, interpretations, and treatment recommendations that have been unanimously affirmed by my 250,000 YouTube channel subscribers as well as previous webinar and seminar participants, and comments given to me by readers of my books and social media. network connections.

Because people in the helping professions need to know this information as much as the general public, it was created to accommodate the many types of potential participants. This educational series should provide victims and survivors of narcissistic abuse and those with self-love deficiency/co-dependent disorder with much-needed information. The titles of the seminars are as follows:

Pathological narcissism and narcissistic abuse
How and Why Narcissists (SLDs/Codependents) Get Trapped
How to survive and escape narcissistic abuse. Tools and strategies
Stop madness
In conclusion, someone who relies on online content from fake experts as their primary source of help for narcissistic abuse, codependency, or “Self-Love Deficit Disorder™” should be very careful. Whether it’s guidance, information, or services from gifted coaches, psychotherapists, and other legitimate service providers, help is here!