July 4, 2025 • 19 mins
The shadow knows what we hide from ourselves. In this riveting conversation, depth psychologist Andrew Charles returns to unpack the complex relationship between depth psychology, shame, and narcissistic personality disorder—offering insights that transcend popular psychology tropes and internet diagnoses.
Charles guides us through the four essential stages of Jungian psychotherapy: confession, where we acknowledge what we've been avoiding; elucidation, which contextualizes our experiences; education, providing psychological frameworks; and transformation, where split-off parts are reintegrated. "We cannot heal what we are avoiding," he reminds us, highlighting how the Jungian journey toward individuation requires confronting our shadow—those disowned aspects of ourselves we've rejected or repressed.
When discussing narcissism specifically, Charles provides a comprehensive breakdown of the nine DSM-5 criteria required for clinical diagnosis, from grandiose self-importance to arrogant behaviors. But what makes this conversation truly illuminating is his compassionate framing of narcissistic traits as responses to profound shame wounds. While true narcissists rarely seek therapy voluntarily, those with narcissistic wounding can find healing through depth psychological approaches like dream interpretation and active imagination—techniques that bypass ego defenses to access unconscious material.
Charles emphasizes the delicate balance required in this work: creating psychological holding that allows individuals to face difficult truths while building genuine connection. By "holding the tension of opposites" and embracing paradox, Jungian therapy offers a pathway not just to symptom reduction but toward psychological wholeness. Whether you're curious about depth psychology or seeking understanding about narcissistic patterns in yourself or others, this episode offers profound insights into the healing journey.
Listen now and discover how what we avoid most might hold the key to our psychological liberation. How might acknowledging your own shadow transform your relationship with yourself?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is
your World.
Hello everyone, and welcomeback to a new session of your
World with Dr Beatrice Ippolit,and today we have a very great
(00:24):
topic to talk about.
So today we're going to talkabout deaf psychology, shame and
narcissistic personalitydisorder, and we have the expert
with us today.
Last time we had that personwith us where we spoke about
deaf psychology, and today it ismy privilege to welcome back on
(00:49):
the show my friend, AndrewCharles.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, hi, beatrice.
It's wonderful to be back heretoday on your World, with you,
beatrice, and yes, as you saidsaid, today we'll be talking
about depth psychology, shameand narcissism, particularly
narcissistic disorder, from adepth psychological frame.
As you know, there's a lot ofinformation in the public domain
(01:19):
about narcissism andnarcissistic personality
disorder and some of it issomewhat cult-like and some of
it is somewhat pop psychology.
Like Today, what we'll be doingis talking about it from a
depth psychological frame ofreference and giving you
(01:42):
information and giving theviewers information about how we
see it and how we work withinthat in terms of responding to
the person who is strugglingwith narcissism.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Then you have the mic .
Walk us through it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes.
So, as I said previously when Iwas on the show, depth
psychology is primarily, wasprimarily developed by Sigmund
Freud, carl Jung and AlfredAdler, and it is the psychology
that is concerned with what ishappening at the unconscious
level of the individual and tosee well how the unconscious is
(02:20):
informing behaviors that areproblematic and impending normal
social functioning.
It also looks at how theunconscious also show up in the
culture, right in politics andother spheres of life.
So for today, what I want to dois just to talk about how depth
(02:41):
psychology within the Jungianpsychological frame is practiced
.
I think I mentioned this before, but I would just like to
reiterate it again today Interms of the Jungian depth
psychological frame.
When we're looking at theJungian psychotherapy practice,
(03:02):
there are four stages with whichthe individual must go through,
with the analyst or thetherapist, and the first stage
has to do with confession.
As I said before, we cannotheal what we are avoiding, right
, what we are putting aside.
So you have to come to termswith the truth of what is
(03:24):
happening and it is done in sucha way that it's somewhat
confessional.
So following that iselucidation, where the therapist
and the patient will be talkinga little about.
What does this mean for theperson?
Right to give them more context.
Following that, you have theeducational component, where the
(03:46):
therapist is providingeducation and holding for the
individual right to help them tounderstand and to interpret
some of the things that they'restruggling with.
They may not have theappropriate assessment for it
right or they're not dealingwith it in an appropriate way,
so the therapist is providingthat education.
(04:08):
What we call in clinical socialwork is called psychoeducation,
providing education in apsychological sense.
And the last part has to dowith transformation, whereby
those things that we'restruggling with, parts of the
personality that has been splitoff, it's been able to be
reintegrated into thepersonality, and so that person
(04:32):
now has transformed those issuesright and they're moving
towards wholeness, psychologicalwholeness.
The trust of Jungian psychologyhas to do with individuation,
and in order for us to get tothat individuation place, there
are certain things that we mustgo through, and one of the
(04:52):
things that is critical for thatprocess is to look at the
shadow component of thepersonality.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
When you say certain things that we have to go
through, yes.
So if you were to give anexample, what that would be.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Okay, so the first part, as I said, is that
confessional component right,where we're seeing things that
we have been struggling with andwe really didn't have the space
and the safety and security tobring it forward and to be
witnessed right and to process.
So you have that and to bewitnessed right and to process.
So you have that.
And as you're going throughthat initial stage, what we tend
(05:31):
to find in the work is thatthere's parts of the personality
that's been split off, cut off,projected, repressed, and that
part goes into the shadow.
The shadow is defined by Jung asthose parts of ourselves that
we don't want, right, that Isaid earlier.
We project, we repress, wesplit off.
(05:54):
We just cut it off fromourselves.
We don't want it.
We turn our backs towards thatpart of ourselves, but the thing
about it is that it doesn't goaway, it remains, and Young
talks about the fact that thedarker the person's shadow is,
the denser the problem is right.
So we want to make sure thatthe person is able to look at,
(06:17):
to tolerate the things that theysplit off, right, and, when
it's needed, for them tointegrate those parts of
themselves so that they canbecome more whole.
Yes, so you mentioned fourcomponents so the four
components has to do withconfession, elucidation,
education and transformation.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Those parts and those four components are vital are
vital.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
They are vital Now.
There are various features,methods that we use in Jungian
psychology, and one of it has todo with dream interpretation,
and the second one that is vitalis active imagination.
Dream interpretation helps usto understand what is happening
(07:04):
at the unconscious level,whereby we are able to bypass
the ego and to see what ishappening outside of the ego's
defenses.
Right, and the other thing interms of active imagination.
What we do with that is to helpthe individual to bring up
(07:25):
various images and to have adialogue with the image.
Sometimes it may be a dreamimage, right, and we have a
dialogue with the image.
Sometimes it may be a dreamimage, right, and we have a
dialogue with the image, wherebythe ego is engaging with the
image and there is a responsethat is occurring in a very
contained way.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So, andrew, I would like for you to give me some
connection between death,psychology, shame and
narcissistic personality, howthose three are related.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Okay.
Well the way in which we look atnarcissism.
We look at it from theperspective that some type of
wounding had occurred right,that some type of wounding had
occurred right, and a lot oftimes what we find is that the
wounding tend to come from aplace of shame, right, where the
(08:19):
individual is not able totolerate what was said to them,
given to them.
Sometimes it may be somethingthat they would have inherited
from the culture or their family, right.
So we're looking at narcissismwithin that sense to see, well,
okay, what is it that thisperson is avoiding?
(08:42):
What is it that this person isnot able?
What truth, what reality thisperson is not able to face
because of it's intolerableright?
They're not able to face itbecause it's full of shame.
It's full as if the person's ofno value and so they would not
(09:04):
want to look at it at all.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So, basically, so it's like the damage was done,
but the person may not be ableto accept or understand the
gravity of that damage.
Yes, and with deaf psychology,I'm trying to understand you yes
, yes, yes, yes.
And with deaf psychology.
So it's like that method willhelp me, as the patient,
(09:28):
understand the reason why I'mexhibiting those type of
behaviors.
Okay, am I right?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Okay, so depth psychology is not going to help
you to understand that inparticular.
Okay, because any type of Iasked a question that way
because I wanted you to you know, to explain it to the viewers
for them to fully understand it.
Yes, so okay, any type ofpsychology that provides
(09:58):
psychological holding right foran individual to help them to
face difficult things that theywould have experienced is useful
, right and helpful and providehealing.
Depth.
Psychology is no different fromthat.
What we do in terms of lookingat those areas of shame is that
(10:21):
we look at it in a very gentle,cautious, patient way with the
individual to help them tounderstand that well, sometimes
shame could be good because ithelps you to regulate yourself
(10:43):
and it helps you to inform yourmoral compass.
Shame in that sense is good.
Toxic shame, on the other hand,is difficult and destructive in
the sense that you are engagingin types of behaviors that avoid
, you are avoiding any type oflimitation, you are avoiding
(11:05):
your humanity.
You're avoiding a form ofmorality as well.
So what we do is we try to getyou to see well, it is okay to
feel this way.
Right, it may not be okaybecause you had the experience
at the time, right in the past,but it is okay to feel that way
(11:25):
in the moment and the point ofit is to help the person to be
more in touch with theirhumanity and their humanness.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yes, okay, so narcissistic personality
individual is somebody who tendto be selfish, somebody who tend
not to show any empathy forothers and somebody who pray on
others for their own benefit.
So if you were to deal with aclient like that, how would you
(11:58):
imply their psychology to helpregulate that person's behavior?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Okay, but first of all we need to look at the
diagnosis for narcissism, andI'm going to turn to the DSM-5.
Let's go to the Bible forpersonality disorders and all
type of mental health issues.
So, according to the DSM-5, aperson is diagnosed with
narcissistic personality if theymeet five of these nine
(12:29):
criteria.
If they meet five of these ninecriteria and the first one is
grandiose self-importance,whereby the person exaggerates
their achievements, theirtalents, and they expect to be
recognized as superior withoutcommensurate achievements the
second is preoccupied withfantasies.
They have this fantasy aboutbeing successful, have ultimate
(12:54):
power, they're brilliant,they're beautiful, they're the
ideal thing for love, right?
So it's fantasy in the sensethat they're not grounded in
reality.
They're in a different place.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But you have some people who have all those
material components, but stillexhibit narcissistic personality
traits.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yes, yes, but what the DSM says is that these
patterns to be clinicallydiagnosed, it has to provide
certain types of distress andimpairment in social,
occupational and other importantareas of functioning.
So these different types ofcriteria that DSM is alluding to
(13:36):
has to be present in differentdomains of life.
So I just want to continue interms of the criteria.
So the third one is believethat they're special or unique
and can only be understood orshould be associated with people
of a higher status and peoplewho are in different types of
(13:56):
position of power.
They require excessiveadmiration, they have a sense of
entitlement and they haveinterpersonal exploitative
behaviors.
Mm-hmm, they lack empathy andthey're often envious of others
and believe that people areenvious of them.
(14:17):
And finally, there's a show ofarrogant behavior and attitude
where they display a haughty,patronizing and condescending
behavior towards other people.
So five of these have to bepresent for you to diagnose this
personality disorder.
Now what we find is that aperson who is bona fide
(14:41):
narcissist would not come totherapy.
They would not come.
But someone who is strugglingwith a narcissistic wound may
come to therapy, and I havepatients who have had several
narcissistic wounds.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Sorry to cut you off, but the first category you just
mentioned, you said that theywill not come to therapy.
So is there a reason why?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yes, the reason, as the DSM highlights, right, they
believe that therapy is not forthem, that they're too smart for
therapy.
And for those persons who dovisit the therapist, oftentimes
they do that out of trying tosay that they are better than
the therapist, they're morepowerful than the therapist,
(15:29):
that they want to show thetherapist that they are wrong
and they are right.
Right, that the therapist waswrong and they are right.
I have an example.
I have an example from theculture about someone who's
struggling with narcissisticpersonality and other
pathological personalities.
That went to therapy and it's ashow that we were looking at
(15:52):
for a long time Tony Soprano,what's the name?
A long time, tony Soprano.
What's the name of that showwith Tony Soprano?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I don't know the.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Sopranos Okay, so it's the Sopranos, where Tony
who was struggling with a mothercomplex.
He had a severe mother complexto the point where anytime his
mother showed disappointment inhim he would go into a rage and
he would take that out on otherpeople and what we saw in the
(16:23):
show.
There were two instances, Ibelieve, whereby his mother was
ill and he was afraid that shewas going to die and so he had
no control over that process,right, and so he started to
experience somewhat like of afit kind of thing where one time
he lost consciousness and justfell right.
(16:46):
He went to the therapist forhelp dealing with his mother's
situation and what he was tryingto do was trying to buy over
the therapist, like to take herover.
So what you find with peoplewho are narcissists who come to
therapy they come there notnecessarily to get well, in a
(17:12):
way engage in a battle with thetherapist.
Thankfully, I have not had anexperience so far in my practice
of seven plus years.
I've not had an experiencewhereby I'm engaging with
someone who wants to do battlewith me.
In that sense.
I've had other instances, butnot that.
(17:32):
You asked the question abouthow do we engage someone who
presents with narcissistictraits?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Others.
Therefore, psychology engagessomebody who exhibits those
traits.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yes, we do that.
By looking at the person'sdreams to see what is coming up
for them, we're helping theindividual to integrate parts of
their shadow.
We're helping them to see theirlimitations right and to show
humility and regard for self.
(18:11):
Right, we're helping the personto have compassion for others,
and we do that, again, in a verygentle way.
There's some notes that I'dlike to allude to in terms of
that specifically.
So, as I said, we want to engagethe person in looking at their
(18:35):
dreams and, using dreaminterpretation and active
imagination, we are looking tohelp them to build genuine
connection right in the workwith us.
We're looking at thetransference consideration, like
what is it that is beingtransferred in the moment with
the patient and helping them totolerate the tension that may
(18:58):
come up right?
One of the things about Jungianpsychology is that he asks us
to hold the tension of theopposite and also to be in that
space of paradox where two orthree things can be true, right,
and you're holding both of themtogether without leading too
(19:20):
far on one side or the other.
All right, the important thingfor the work is timing and
patience.
That's what's important forengaging with someone who has a
narcissistic structure right,not necessarily the personality,
but the structure.
Yes.
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is
your World.
Hello everyone, and welcomeback to a new session of your
World with Dr Beatrice Ippolit,and today we have a very great
(00:24):
topic to talk about.
So today we're going to talkabout deaf psychology, shame and
narcissistic personalitydisorder, and we have the expert
with us today.
Last time we had that personwith us where we spoke about
deaf psychology, and today it ismy privilege to welcome back on
(00:49):
the show my friend, AndrewCharles.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, hi, beatrice.
It's wonderful to be back heretoday on your World, with you,
beatrice, and yes, as you saidsaid, today we'll be talking
about depth psychology, shameand narcissism, particularly
narcissistic disorder, from adepth psychological frame.
As you know, there's a lot ofinformation in the public domain
(01:19):
about narcissism andnarcissistic personality
disorder and some of it issomewhat cult-like and some of
it is somewhat pop psychology.
Like Today, what we'll be doingis talking about it from a
depth psychological frame ofreference and giving you
(01:42):
information and giving theviewers information about how we
see it and how we work withinthat in terms of responding to
the person who is strugglingwith narcissism.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Then you have the mic .
Walk us through it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes.
So, as I said previously when Iwas on the show, depth
psychology is primarily, wasprimarily developed by Sigmund
Freud, carl Jung and AlfredAdler, and it is the psychology
that is concerned with what ishappening at the unconscious
level of the individual and tosee well how the unconscious is
(02:20):
informing behaviors that areproblematic and impending normal
social functioning.
It also looks at how theunconscious also show up in the
culture, right in politics andother spheres of life.
So for today, what I want to dois just to talk about how depth
(02:41):
psychology within the Jungianpsychological frame is practiced
.
I think I mentioned this before, but I would just like to
reiterate it again today Interms of the Jungian depth
psychological frame.
When we're looking at theJungian psychotherapy practice,
(03:02):
there are four stages with whichthe individual must go through,
with the analyst or thetherapist, and the first stage
has to do with confession.
As I said before, we cannotheal what we are avoiding, right
, what we are putting aside.
So you have to come to termswith the truth of what is
(03:24):
happening and it is done in sucha way that it's somewhat
confessional.
So following that iselucidation, where the therapist
and the patient will be talkinga little about.
What does this mean for theperson?
Right to give them more context.
Following that, you have theeducational component, where the
(03:46):
therapist is providingeducation and holding for the
individual right to help them tounderstand and to interpret
some of the things that they'restruggling with.
They may not have theappropriate assessment for it
right or they're not dealingwith it in an appropriate way,
so the therapist is providingthat education.
(04:08):
What we call in clinical socialwork is called psychoeducation,
providing education in apsychological sense.
And the last part has to dowith transformation, whereby
those things that we'restruggling with, parts of the
personality that has been splitoff, it's been able to be
reintegrated into thepersonality, and so that person
(04:32):
now has transformed those issuesright and they're moving
towards wholeness, psychologicalwholeness.
The trust of Jungian psychologyhas to do with individuation,
and in order for us to get tothat individuation place, there
are certain things that we mustgo through, and one of the
(04:52):
things that is critical for thatprocess is to look at the
shadow component of thepersonality.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
When you say certain things that we have to go
through, yes.
So if you were to give anexample, what that would be.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Okay, so the first part, as I said, is that
confessional component right,where we're seeing things that
we have been struggling with andwe really didn't have the space
and the safety and security tobring it forward and to be
witnessed right and to process.
So you have that and to bewitnessed right and to process.
So you have that.
And as you're going throughthat initial stage, what we tend
(05:31):
to find in the work is thatthere's parts of the personality
that's been split off, cut off,projected, repressed, and that
part goes into the shadow.
The shadow is defined by Jung asthose parts of ourselves that
we don't want, right, that Isaid earlier.
We project, we repress, wesplit off.
(05:54):
We just cut it off fromourselves.
We don't want it.
We turn our backs towards thatpart of ourselves, but the thing
about it is that it doesn't goaway, it remains, and Young
talks about the fact that thedarker the person's shadow is,
the denser the problem is right.
So we want to make sure thatthe person is able to look at,
(06:17):
to tolerate the things that theysplit off, right, and, when
it's needed, for them tointegrate those parts of
themselves so that they canbecome more whole.
Yes, so you mentioned fourcomponents so the four
components has to do withconfession, elucidation,
education and transformation.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Those parts and those four components are vital are
vital.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
They are vital Now.
There are various features,methods that we use in Jungian
psychology, and one of it has todo with dream interpretation,
and the second one that is vitalis active imagination.
Dream interpretation helps usto understand what is happening
(07:04):
at the unconscious level,whereby we are able to bypass
the ego and to see what ishappening outside of the ego's
defenses.
Right, and the other thing interms of active imagination.
What we do with that is to helpthe individual to bring up
(07:25):
various images and to have adialogue with the image.
Sometimes it may be a dreamimage, right, and we have a
dialogue with the image.
Sometimes it may be a dreamimage, right, and we have a
dialogue with the image, wherebythe ego is engaging with the
image and there is a responsethat is occurring in a very
contained way.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So, andrew, I would like for you to give me some
connection between death,psychology, shame and
narcissistic personality, howthose three are related.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Okay.
Well the way in which we look atnarcissism.
We look at it from theperspective that some type of
wounding had occurred right,that some type of wounding had
occurred right, and a lot oftimes what we find is that the
wounding tend to come from aplace of shame, right, where the
(08:19):
individual is not able totolerate what was said to them,
given to them.
Sometimes it may be somethingthat they would have inherited
from the culture or their family, right.
So we're looking at narcissismwithin that sense to see, well,
okay, what is it that thisperson is avoiding?
(08:42):
What is it that this person isnot able?
What truth, what reality thisperson is not able to face
because of it's intolerableright?
They're not able to face itbecause it's full of shame.
It's full as if the person's ofno value and so they would not
(09:04):
want to look at it at all.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So, basically, so it's like the damage was done,
but the person may not be ableto accept or understand the
gravity of that damage.
Yes, and with deaf psychology,I'm trying to understand you yes
, yes, yes, yes.
And with deaf psychology.
So it's like that method willhelp me, as the patient,
(09:28):
understand the reason why I'mexhibiting those type of
behaviors.
Okay, am I right?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Okay, so depth psychology is not going to help
you to understand that inparticular.
Okay, because any type of Iasked a question that way
because I wanted you to you know, to explain it to the viewers
for them to fully understand it.
Yes, so okay, any type ofpsychology that provides
(09:58):
psychological holding right foran individual to help them to
face difficult things that theywould have experienced is useful
, right and helpful and providehealing.
Depth.
Psychology is no different fromthat.
What we do in terms of lookingat those areas of shame is that
(10:21):
we look at it in a very gentle,cautious, patient way with the
individual to help them tounderstand that well, sometimes
shame could be good because ithelps you to regulate yourself
(10:43):
and it helps you to inform yourmoral compass.
Shame in that sense is good.
Toxic shame, on the other hand,is difficult and destructive in
the sense that you are engagingin types of behaviors that avoid
, you are avoiding any type oflimitation, you are avoiding
(11:05):
your humanity.
You're avoiding a form ofmorality as well.
So what we do is we try to getyou to see well, it is okay to
feel this way.
Right, it may not be okaybecause you had the experience
at the time, right in the past,but it is okay to feel that way
(11:25):
in the moment and the point ofit is to help the person to be
more in touch with theirhumanity and their humanness.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yes, okay, so narcissistic personality
individual is somebody who tendto be selfish, somebody who tend
not to show any empathy forothers and somebody who pray on
others for their own benefit.
So if you were to deal with aclient like that, how would you
(11:58):
imply their psychology to helpregulate that person's behavior?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Okay, but first of all we need to look at the
diagnosis for narcissism, andI'm going to turn to the DSM-5.
Let's go to the Bible forpersonality disorders and all
type of mental health issues.
So, according to the DSM-5, aperson is diagnosed with
narcissistic personality if theymeet five of these nine
(12:29):
criteria.
If they meet five of these ninecriteria and the first one is
grandiose self-importance,whereby the person exaggerates
their achievements, theirtalents, and they expect to be
recognized as superior withoutcommensurate achievements the
second is preoccupied withfantasies.
They have this fantasy aboutbeing successful, have ultimate
(12:54):
power, they're brilliant,they're beautiful, they're the
ideal thing for love, right?
So it's fantasy in the sensethat they're not grounded in
reality.
They're in a different place.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But you have some people who have all those
material components, but stillexhibit narcissistic personality
traits.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yes, yes, but what the DSM says is that these
patterns to be clinicallydiagnosed, it has to provide
certain types of distress andimpairment in social,
occupational and other importantareas of functioning.
So these different types ofcriteria that DSM is alluding to
(13:36):
has to be present in differentdomains of life.
So I just want to continue interms of the criteria.
So the third one is believethat they're special or unique
and can only be understood orshould be associated with people
of a higher status and peoplewho are in different types of
(13:56):
position of power.
They require excessiveadmiration, they have a sense of
entitlement and they haveinterpersonal exploitative
behaviors.
Mm-hmm, they lack empathy andthey're often envious of others
and believe that people areenvious of them.
(14:17):
And finally, there's a show ofarrogant behavior and attitude
where they display a haughty,patronizing and condescending
behavior towards other people.
So five of these have to bepresent for you to diagnose this
personality disorder.
Now what we find is that aperson who is bona fide
(14:41):
narcissist would not come totherapy.
They would not come.
But someone who is strugglingwith a narcissistic wound may
come to therapy, and I havepatients who have had several
narcissistic wounds.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Sorry to cut you off, but the first category you just
mentioned, you said that theywill not come to therapy.
So is there a reason why?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yes, the reason, as the DSM highlights, right, they
believe that therapy is not forthem, that they're too smart for
therapy.
And for those persons who dovisit the therapist, oftentimes
they do that out of trying tosay that they are better than
the therapist, they're morepowerful than the therapist,
(15:29):
that they want to show thetherapist that they are wrong
and they are right.
Right, that the therapist waswrong and they are right.
I have an example.
I have an example from theculture about someone who's
struggling with narcissisticpersonality and other
pathological personalities.
That went to therapy and it's ashow that we were looking at
(15:52):
for a long time Tony Soprano,what's the name?
A long time, tony Soprano.
What's the name of that showwith Tony Soprano?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I don't know the.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Sopranos Okay, so it's the Sopranos, where Tony
who was struggling with a mothercomplex.
He had a severe mother complexto the point where anytime his
mother showed disappointment inhim he would go into a rage and
he would take that out on otherpeople and what we saw in the
(16:23):
show.
There were two instances, Ibelieve, whereby his mother was
ill and he was afraid that shewas going to die and so he had
no control over that process,right, and so he started to
experience somewhat like of afit kind of thing where one time
he lost consciousness and justfell right.
(16:46):
He went to the therapist forhelp dealing with his mother's
situation and what he was tryingto do was trying to buy over
the therapist, like to take herover.
So what you find with peoplewho are narcissists who come to
therapy they come there notnecessarily to get well, in a
(17:12):
way engage in a battle with thetherapist.
Thankfully, I have not had anexperience so far in my practice
of seven plus years.
I've not had an experiencewhereby I'm engaging with
someone who wants to do battlewith me.
In that sense.
I've had other instances, butnot that.
(17:32):
You asked the question abouthow do we engage someone who
presents with narcissistictraits?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Others.
Therefore, psychology engagessomebody who exhibits those
traits.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yes, we do that.
By looking at the person'sdreams to see what is coming up
for them, we're helping theindividual to integrate parts of
their shadow.
We're helping them to see theirlimitations right and to show
humility and regard for self.
(18:11):
Right, we're helping the personto have compassion for others,
and we do that, again, in a verygentle way.
There's some notes that I'dlike to allude to in terms of
that specifically.
So, as I said, we want to engagethe person in looking at their
(18:35):
dreams and, using dreaminterpretation and active
imagination, we are looking tohelp them to build genuine
connection right in the workwith us.
We're looking at thetransference consideration, like
what is it that is beingtransferred in the moment with
the patient and helping them totolerate the tension that may
(18:58):
come up right?
One of the things about Jungianpsychology is that he asks us
to hold the tension of theopposite and also to be in that
space of paradox where two orthree things can be true, right,
and you're holding both of themtogether without leading too
(19:20):
far on one side or the other.
All right, the important thingfor the work is timing and
patience.
That's what's important forengaging with someone who has a
narcissistic structure right,not necessarily the personality,
but the structure.
Yes.
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