Resources on Recovery from Pathological Narcissism

These are various resources I've compiled on recovery from pathological narcissism. I'm only interested in compassionate, insightful, and recovery-focused resources.

‌I've also found the books Unmasking Narcissism by Dr. Mark Ettensohn and Rethinking Narcissism by Dr. Craig Malkin to be very informative.

‌The first one has also been recommended by a number of content creators with pathological narcissism (PN), and the second one is among Jordan Monroe's recommended books. (I recommend you skip the chapter on parenting and read Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn instead.)

‌A review of Unmasking Narcissism.

‌PN is perfectly treatable and plenty of people have minimized the effects it has on their lives, including two friends of mine.

Narcissist Explains the 7 Biggest Myths About Narcissism:

The Top 5 NPD Myths:

How is NPD Treated:

One example of an effective treatment paradigm is Mentalization-Based Treatment. (Note that the host role-plays a client with PN at one point, which I'm afraid might feel insulting. Note also that most of the evidence for the effectiveness of MBT is for plenty of other disorders, notably borderline, and not yet PN.)

I'm currently reading Mentalization-Based Treatment for Pathological Narcissism. It's a little dense and written for therapists, but it gives me a nice behind-the-scenes vibe. Daniel J. Fox may have some helpful workbooks too, but I’ve only read one so far.

Another treatment method is Transference-Focused Therapy:

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy can also be useful for PN (not only for combined borderline and PN presentations) because it gives people skills for working with features of “borderline personality organization,” which can be common to all personality disorders (not just borderline). But I think it should be combined with psychodynamic treatments like the above. (Note that the video also contains a role-play, but it's more situation-specific.)

Tips for finding a therapist. Especially the tips around 12:55 maybe useful because they are very concrete. I imagine that if you have the universal feeling that everyone else is wrong, it's hard to tell when they are actually wrong. And sadly non-specialist therapists are often wrong about PN. This concrete test can hopefully help.

An interview with Jacob Skidmore, a.k.a. The Nameless Narcissist.

Two explanations of “non-mentalizing modes,” i.e. moments when you have no or a distorted idea of what others are thinking and feeling. Personally, I've found it useful to write out explicitly what I think they are/were thinking or how they might react. Then, based on the concretely verbalized descriptions, I can usually tell with ease when my thinking makes no sense whatsoever in the context of everything I know about their character.

If someone accuses you for “gaslighting,” and you're confused, you can check whether these videos resonates with you (and maybe link one to them as an explanation, not as an excuse).

Why Narcissists Gaslight:

Narcissist Explains Gaslighting – Why He Does It & How To Stop:

How to tell whether you have PN (from someone with PN).

Mark Ettensohn's impassioned appeal to end the stigma around PN and why the DSM-5, section 2, definition of NPD sucks.

What is Narcissism Part 1: The Problem with NPD:

What is Narcissism Part 2: A Functional Definition of Narcissism:

‌Here is the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) instead.

For you to be proud of your resiliency as a child.

Reparenting yourself, so you don't replicate what your parents/caregivers (and others) did to you in your relationship to yourself. (Or the relationship to your children.) The book Unconditional Parenting is also useful for reparenting yourself!

The importance of self-compassion for recovery from PN.

The BPD Bunch, my favorite shame-o-lytic (listening to others who've done similar or worse things and how they've processed them helps me a lot – it's also a prosocial replacement for projective identification, where you make someone else feel something in the hope to learn how to process such a feeling).

The playlist of Jordan and Kyra's videos together is incredible!

Another bit of motivation: Marsha Linehan's Building a Life Worth Living (her memoir, she developed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) is a great read. Reading between the lines, it's also easy to tell that she and her parents have plenty of PN traits. Her “grandiose fantasy” has always been to escape the hell of borderline herself and then return to hell to save others who are still suffering like she did. And then she went ahead and did just that. I think she's a brilliant example not only of someone who has overcome borderline but also of someone who has turned PN traits into prosocial heroism and saved millions from unfathomable agony.

Recovery doesn't mean giving up on ambition and healthy narcissism. Far from it!

I'm adding all the PN videos I enjoy to this playlist.