Key Points
Family therapy can be challenging when one partner is extremely high in narcissism.
Narcissists often have difficulty with accountability and empathy.
There are things to consider before choosing family therapy with a narcissist.
It’s important to put your own therapeutic needs first.
If you grew up with a parent who was high in narcissism, you may still believe that you can somehow fix or change the relationship so that you can get some of your emotional needs met. This is certainly a natural desire. We all want to have a happy, connected, loving family.
Think of narcissism as a spectrum disorder. At the low end are some narcissistic traits that we all possess; then, as one moves along the spectrum and the trait becomes more severe, more problems typically arise. The end of this spectrum is full-blown narcissistic personality disorder.
While some narcissistic personality traits are certainly disturbing—but not necessarily abusive or harmful—other traits can be truly problematic. For example, if a narcissist is loud, boastful, 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 damaging effects tend to include a lack of empathy, a lack of emotional attunement to others’ feelings, a lack of accountability, a need to always be right, a sense of entitlement, manipulative behaviors that hurt others for their benefit, and displaying envy rather than celebrating the people in their lives. These destructive traits tend to interfere with successful family therapy and can leave you feeling frustrated, disappointed, anxious, and sad.
Let’s look at some examples in a therapeutic setting:
- Lack of empathy and inability to be emotionally attuned to others’ feelings.
Imagine that you come to therapy with your narcissistic parent or family member, and your therapist asks you to reveal how you feel in this relationship. You start crying and expressing your sadness, anger, and pain about the way you’ve been treated.
The therapist will likely listen to your pain and respond to it. But the narcissist may just sit there emotionless, waiting for you to finish. They are unable to empathize with you or truly be attuned to you. It’s like talking to a brick wall.
A narcissistic therapist will often urge you to practice empathy or even try to teach you how to do it. They may end up learning the right words to say—but if the real feelings aren’t there, it’s usually possible for others to feel them. We know when we’ve been seen and heard.
- Lack of accountability and the need to be right.
Next, you may find that the highly narcissistic person often refuses to take responsibility for anything you describe and instead says that you’re wrong for expressing your feelings. They don’t acknowledge their actions but declare that there must be something wrong with you. They must be right—and of course, you are wrong.
In therapy with someone like this, you may get the impression that maybe you’re the crazy one and are just imagining these events or feelings, or maybe you’re not a grateful son or daughter. Your perceptions of your reality are now called into question, and you begin to doubt yourself again. They’re right and you’re wrong; that’s the end of the story.
With someone high in narcissistic traits, there is often no accountability or real interest in what you are saying. During therapy, someone high in narcissistic traits may begin to question the therapist as well, calling them “not good enough” in the process.
- Entitlement.
Entitlement can get in the way of therapy because someone high in narcissistic traits may seem to expect to be treated with automatic compliance to their expectations or desires. They may feel like they are the important person in the room, and expect special treatment. Their desire to avoid waiting, pay too much, or listen to others can interfere with therapy.
- Taking advantage of others.
Many people with high levels of narcissism will try to take advantage of therapy time; in the case of family therapy with an adult child, this might mean using it to tell the therapist how bad your son or daughter is or how you have caused them so much grief. The goal is to shift the focus so that they can appear as a victim or martyr who have sacrificed so much for their “ungrateful child.” In extreme cases, they may leave messages for the therapist later to share some of your very personal information to make sure the therapist is on their side.
- Envy.
Envy is a killer of love. Often, adult children of narcissists simply want to share their accomplishments or recovery work with a parent in therapy. Because high narcissists typically have a very fragile ego and must be the best at everything, they often feel threatened by their children’s accomplishments or feel as though the child should not be superior to them.
The desperate desire to have your parent proud of you and celebrate you can sometimes turn into your parent finding fault with you to put you in a vulnerable position, most likely so they don’t feel insecure. “Well, don’t overdo it; it’s inappropriate.” Instead, they may try to take credit for everything the child has done. “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 many dysfunctional family-of-origin issues. If family members have some narcissistic traits but aren’t too far off the spectrum, there is certainly hope for recovery. Seek out an experienced, licensed family therapist if your family can take responsibility and offer compassion to each member of the family system.
However, if the above examples ring true for you before you reach therapy, it may not be wise to pursue the family therapy route. In many cases, adult children’s recovery from narcissism is 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 the amazing ability to transform ourselves.
