the main points

Family therapy can be challenging when one party is particularly high in narcissism.
Narcissists often have difficulty with accountability and empathy.
There are things to consider before choosing family therapy with a narcissist.
It is important to put your treatment needs first.

If you grew up with a parent who was high in narcissism, you may still think that you can fix or change the relationship in some way so that some of your emotional needs can be met. It is certainly a natural desire. We all wish for a happy, well-connected and loving family.

Think of narcissism as a spectrum disorder. Ultimately there are some narcissistic traits that we all possess; Then, as the person moves along the spectrum and the severity of the trait increases, more problems usually ensue. The extreme end of this spectrum is full-blown narcissistic personality disorder.

While some traits of narcissism are certainly annoying—but not necessarily abusive or harmful—others can be a real problem. For example, if a narcissist is loud, cheerful, bragging, and talks about himself a lot, but does not engage in other harmful behaviors, you may be able to ignore or overlook these unpleasant traits.

Particularly harmful effects tend to include a lack of empathy, a lack of emotional attunement to the feelings of others, a lack of accountability, the need to always be right, a sense of entitlement, exploitative behaviors that hurt others for their own benefit, and displays of envy. Instead of celebrating the people in their lives. These destructive traits tend to be what interfere with successful family therapy and can leave you feeling more frustrated, disappointed, anxious, and sad.

Let’s look at some examples in the therapeutic setting:

1. Lack of empathy and inability to be emotionally attuned to the feelings of others.

Imagine you come to therapy with your narcissistic parent or family member, and the therapist asks you to reveal how you feel in this relationship. You begin to cry and express your sadness, anger, and pain about the way you were treated.

The therapist likely hears and responds to your pain. But the narcissistic partner may be sitting there emotionless, waiting for it to end. They are unable to empathize with you or truly listen to you. It’s like talking to a brick wall.

Related : 13 Common Behaviors and Values of Narcissistic People

The therapist will usually encourage the narcissist to practice empathy or even try to teach him how to do so. They may end up learning the right words to say, but if the true feelings aren’t there, others can usually sense them. We know when we have seen and heard.

2. Lack of accountability and the need to be right.

Next, you may find that the highly narcissistic person often refuses to take responsibility for what you describe, saying instead that you are wrong in expressing your feelings. They do not acknowledge their actions but declare that there must be something wrong with you. They must be right, and of course you are wrong.

During therapy with someone like this, you may have the impression that perhaps you are the crazy person and are only imagining these events or feelings, or perhaps that you are not a grateful son or daughter. Your perceptions of your reality have now been called into question, and you have begun to doubt yourself again. They are right and you are wrong. end of story.

With someone high in narcissistic traits, there is often no responsibility or actual interest in what you have to say. During therapy, someone high in narcissism may begin to question the therapist as well, calling them “not good enough” in the process.

3. Entitlement.

Entitlement can get in the way of treatment because a person high in narcissism may seem to expect to be treated with automatic compliance with his or her expectations or desires. They may feel like they are the important person in the room and expect special treatment. Their desire to avoid waiting, paying too much, or listening to others can interfere with treatment.

4. Exploiting others for their own benefit.

Many people with a high degree of narcissism will try to use therapy time for their own benefit; In the case of family therapy with an adult child, this may mean that they use it to tell the therapist what a bad son or daughter you are or how you have caused them a lot of grief. The goal is to shift the focus so that they can appear as a victim or martyr who sacrificed so much for their “ungrateful child.” In some extreme cases, they may leave messages for the therapist later to share some of your very personal information to ensure that the therapist is on their side.

5. Envy.

Envy is the killer of love. Often, adult children of narcissists only want to share their accomplishments or recovery work with a parent in treatment. Because people high in narcissism usually have very fragile egos and must be the best at everything, they are often threatened by their child’s achievements or feel that the child should not outperform them.

Related : Can We Teach Narcissists to Care?

Your intense desire for your parent to be proud of you and celebrate you can, in some cases, turn into that same parent finding things wrong to put you up some pegs, most likely so he doesn’t feel insecure. “Well, don’t worry about it; It’s inappropriate.” They may, instead, try to take credit for everything the child did. “Yes, that’s great, but you couldn’t have done it without me.”

Is family therapy a good option?
Family therapy can be a great solution to resolving many dysfunctional family issues of origin. If family members have some traits of narcissism but are not too far along this spectrum, there is certainly hope for recovery. Find an experienced, licensed family therapist if your family is able to take responsibility and provide compassion to every member in the family system.

However, if the above examples ring true for you even before you begin treatment, it may not be wise to go the family therapy route. The recovery of adult children of narcissists is, in many cases, an inside job. It is best to work on your recovery with your therapist and not try to fix or change the family. Although we do not have the power to change others, we do have an amazing ability for self-transformation.