Therapy for Narcissists

The XN went to therapy, didn't help. Having a healthy amount of hope is good, but life is not a Disney movie. If you love yourself though, truly love yourself, it's better than Disney because you are the creator of your own life. Hugs and make the most of it!!! C

Let's not forget what N's really are: Sociopaths!!! they are dangerous. They are the Scott Peterson's of the world. we should ALL be thankful we're alive & survived them to be able to write on this board. There's a spectrum, and not all are killers, but all are sociopaths; incapable of feelings, emotions, understanding. They are expert manipulators, liars & frauds. Don't ask yourself this question - ask yourself how you can heal and move past this freak! he will never change even with the "best intentions" (which are manipulative lies) :)

History of my Narc's "Therapy" 1. In therapy when I first met him due to divorce and woman he was dating (OW #1) 2. Took OW#1 to Therapy with him 3. Told me the therapist "loved" him and wanted him to be happy 4. After I left him over OW#1, he phoned me to go to CoDependency Class with him because he had gone to one and it helped him to "dump" OW#1 5. I went (duh....) After 3 mtgs, he quit because the leader was "too CoDependent" 6. Continued with therapy entire yr we dated and I feel certain totally hoodwinked her 7. Advised his friend and wife to go to his therapist for marriage counseling 8. OW#2 that ended our relationship was the wife of said friend. 9. His therapist was seeing him, friend and the OW all at the same time. So, to answer your question, NO, therapy does not work for the Narc........it just hit me, he triangulated his own therapist LOL

and kept HOPING while he did all kinds of therapy. I realize now the only thing these groups ect did for him was give him more language to use and more ways to be able to fake things with his new knowledge. If you really think it works. When the x left I thought maybe he needed time to explore and get better, he was dating with in 2 weeks and is now on the second ow. He just finished another seminar,. Funny thing is the seminar has been over for a few days and he has yet to contact his sons. Alot of good it did and it was almost 1000 dollars

the answer is a big resounding NO,NO and no, they are great at manipulating the therapist, how kind of him to want to learn about himself DUH, that is all he cares about HIMSELF, read all the studies they never get better, my narc went to so many therapists with his first wife and nothing changed, he thought he knew more that the therapist ...............why give one more minute of your life to a man who is married anyway, don't you deserve a man who is single and available to you only?It is a valid question you should ask yourself, it is through the hard questions we find the answers to ourselves........

NO! There is plenty of documentation out there to support the answer. Any so called "progress" will be temporary or is only manipulative in nature rooted in apeasing someone to get what they want. Its like asking someone without legs to walk. They have no ability. It just isnt there

We went for many years to therapy - alone, together. Most of the time, he ended up either resenting the therapist or getting the therapist to agree with him that it was me or "both of us"....bullshit. Except for the fact that I enabled his disorder...and on that front - the therapist was right. Yet, he still goes to an actual psychiatrist. He has honestly said in recent "When I asked "my guy" if it was ok to have our daughter around y skank OW, he said it was fine." Really? D12 is in therapy herself trying to deal with the enormous pain of her parents divorcing and the life as she knew it ending...and her father involving her in his affair a mere weeks after he LEFT HER HOME>...and this was A-OK with his psych? Then, when daughter's therapist asked him continually to stop exposing her to his relationship and only devote himself to her right now when he has her....he ignored her requests. When daughter got the gumption and strength to tell him herself in a session with her dad, the therapist was then a "fucking bitch" who was turning daughter against him. So recently, my own therapist told me "I hate to give up on anybody...but really M....narcs never will change". Focus on your life and recovery. They are not worth one more day of your obsession, pain or thinking. Not ONE MORE DAY.

I do believe there's nothing that can help a Narc. It doesn't matter taking them to therapy because it is said they can fool a therapist pretty well. I was in therapy today for myself and my psychiatrist told me those guys are good masters at the art of manipulation and they don't need to make strong efforts for it, because generally they are surrounded by "enablers"=enablers are all those who stay with them, even knowing what they do and how they behave. It's a dream thinking they can change, they won't. Your Narc is not going to change, neither any other Narc. They see the world this way "I am ok, either you accept me for what I am because if you don't, it's you who have a problem, not me". Trying to put him in therapy won't work. The other enablers are still there and won't go away. He would have to change radically his personality, and as you know the way we are, is the way we are going to die. Think about it for a moment: why would they change if they don't see a problem about themselves? He thinks it's your problem! It's you who are not ok with the way he is. He is fine about himself, and as I said before, it's either you who have to change and accept him the way he is, or, you don't have another alternative left to deal with the problem. Seek therapy for yourself. I had to it for me. It's true I ended up (like so many more all over the world) with anti-depressants, anxiolytics and sedative/hypnotics to sleep. What I know is that my therapist told me loud and clear, a master of manipulation and a Narc don't see a problem about them. Unfortunately, by my own personal experience I had to admit she was 200% right and there was a moment she also told me, I was also an enabler for a long period of time.

I want to reiterate what so many here have said already. NPD is an incurable personality disorder. No amount of therapy is going to help him. He will only use it as an excuse. Beware of messages saying - "I'm really working on myself and learning alot" because it is completely BS. Just another way to get you to come back. Leave now and never ever go back. You can do so much better! I tried therapy with my exN before I knew what his disorder was. It seemed to work while I was compliant, but the minute I finally started calling him on his lies and exerting my personality, he dropped all pretense of pretending it was working. His last words about therapy? "It was totally worthless. All the therapist did was try to make me think I had a terrible childhood." (PS - he did have a terrible childhood with a narc mother.)

I wouldn't bet on it helping him. You're holding onto an impossible dream. Therapy is a waste of time on a narc. They think they're perfect just the way they are. It's everyone else that is always at fault and to blame for all their woes. Narcs do not accept responsibility for their own behaviors. Therapy will not change this. In my own case, I went to therapy with my second xnh at two different periods in my relationship with him, and once with my first xph (yes, I'm a slow learner and have married two disordered people). Both times with my second xnh, he acted compliant during the sessions and willing to work on himself. Then when we left the sessions, he used everything said to abuse and attack me. Therapy, also, made xnh MORE abusive to me because he learned how to manipulate the therapist. Then he could get the therapist to agree with whatever he was currently blaming me for. Everything was all my fault, according to xnh. I told the therapist how xnh was using the sessions to attack me, and xnh was told that what happened in the session stays in the sessions. When I got into the car to ride home with xnh that day, he started raging at me in the parking lot, and slammed my head into the car window for telling the therapist what he was doing. At this point, I quit going to therapy with xnh. It was not helping me (or our marriage) in any way, and xnh was honing his abuse skills against me in the process. I was actually in more danger than, if I had never gone to therapy with xnh. Therapy with xnh was kind of like handing a terrorist a loaded gun, and then telling him "No. No. Bad Boy." when he shot it. Therapy with my first xph was basically the same type result (only not as severe or long lasting). The therapist told him that *I* had problems with the relationship because his abusive behaviors bothered me. Xph took this to mean that *I* am the only person that needed to do any work on the relationship, and HE could do whatever he chose. Once again, it was much liking turning a little kid loose in a candy store. What the therapist had really been trying to say was that the problems were bothering me, and it was an indication that we BOTH had things to work on in order to make the relationship work. Therefore, I would not advise wasting the effort going to therapy with a narc. It will not help the narc, and it could even provide him with an opportunity to hone his narc skills manipulating the therapist. Personally, the only therapy that I've had help me in my life was therapy I went to ALONE during the last year of my marriage to my second xnh. Now THAT was helpful. I did it for myself, and *I* was a worthy investment. I was truly receptive and willing to do the necessary work. The narcs were not. Huge hugs.

healing for a n/p. They fool the best in the business. Offices are full of their victims, not the parasite in the sheep's costume that gets "its" jollies from fooling yet another person. Please read about personality disorders. They are incurable. The disorder is in their very fabric of the person. I read all of the responses, they all say the same thing, really, run like hell.

"That he looks forward to his sessions and is making progress on learning about himself." Translation: "I look forward to figuring out things in therapy that I can say and mimic in order to reel you back in and further abuse you." Or even "I look forward to getting all magically better and feeling great." The first is disgusting and the second is a fantasy - at best, your narc believes the same fantasy you do - that he is great and just needs a few sessions to fix any glitches. Therapy is one of the most abusive and ravaging forms of hoovering and I encourage you to ignore it. It was horrifying and when they reel the therapist in it can be so damaging to your own understanding of reality. I am a lawyer and work with many people in jail and sometimes think of my relationship with an npd when dealing with them. I have compassion for most of my clients, I understand how they got where they are, why they robbed someone or even killed someone, I get the sexual abusers and their messed up childhood and sometimes, therapy can help them join society in a more productive way. HOWEVER, this does not mean that I would give a pedofile my children. when we hold on to the idea of npd and therapy, we are giving them our soul. Even the most committed and well-intentioned to changing narc would take years of intensive treatment to move one inch better. you are holding on to a fanstasy. I promise you. and breadcrumbs. please don't buy it!

Maggster....there is no incentive for an N to chance...why would they when they are all about themselves. Of course he enjoys going to therapy, because I'm sure he is manipulating the sessions and talking all about himself. NPD is a disorder, it is woven into the whole fabric of these men. You are still holding tightly onto a dream instead of letting him go. As long as your focus is on him and not on you...your recovery will be stalled. You need to take that "break" as Spinning suggested. Take some time away from any contact with him so you can see his true colors. He is feeding you pixie dust and telling you it is mana from heaven. Please take a break from any contact with this man so that you can find yourself again.

Your narcissist is a lying, cheating, manipulative, subhuman who is married, and has had at least one OW at the same time as the relationship with you. He would say anything at all, absolutely anything to get/keep supply. Therapy is merely attention focused on him yet again - look at me, I'm so special. There is no redemption possible here - he feels nothing - not empathy, not sympathy, not love, not care, not affection - he is the consummate actor, he is empty. A therapist cannot help an empty vessel with a hole in the bottom, a therapist is as likely to be taken in by an N as anyone. To an N we are/have the problem. The N becomes whatever is necessary to survive and then does a character assassination on us to anyone who'll listen. If he's in therapy it's part of his agenda - be careful. I'm truly sorry Maggster, he has stolen 15 years of your life and given you nothing, nothing at all except pain. Run, run, dear Maggster and never look back. Reclaim your life. NC is not just for Christmas (ie 100 days)-it's a lifelong necessity.

If an N has no sense of self-reflection, how can therapy help? I'm tempted to think it only really helps Ns cause, of convincing you that he's all better, so that you two can patch this little thing up, and he can continue to dole out more abuse. Then again, everything varies. Depends how open someone really is to changing. A true N has no intention of changing, because they don't believe that they are the problem. Watch out, it could be more manipulation, is all I'm getting at.