Narcissism. Lecture By Harm Siemens (Netherlands)

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Dear Colleagues, In this lecture, I will talk with you about the phenomenon of narcissism from the perspective of gestalt therapy.

I will outline some of the distress and needs that exist in the experience of the narcissistically functioning client and relate these problems to specific experiences and developmental processes in their early childhood. In the following I outline a Gestalt perspective and methodology in relation to narcissism

Let me start with a short story of a young man named Narcissus. This story was told to us by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses about 2000 years ago. The beautiful Narcissus fell in love with his reflection in the crystal clear water of the pond. In this mirror, he could only see his own beautiful image, but he never saw his own self. He was not aware of the fact that appearances are deceiving. Narcissus could not satisfy his love, because if he reached forward, he would drown in the pond. He became very sad and withered. A daffodil flower appeared in this place.

In this story, we can recognize some of the suffering of the narcissistic client who comes to us for help. Separated from his true self, he lives unhappily with the false self. It is hypothesized that in early childhood development he lacked authentic contact with his parents. As a child, he changed himself and his self-esteem for the love of the environment.

The message from his parents was: "Don't be who you are, be who I need you to be, and I will love you." One of the two poles of the sliding scale of narcissism is the sensitive and vulnerable narcissist. He is highly sensitive to the reactions of others and listens closely to others for signs of the slightest criticism. He is reserved and shy. He also strives for excellence.

Because of his fear of losing love and confirmation from others, he adapts to their needs and demands. It is not surprising that a narcissistic person often has problems with a partner. The partner does not always admire and confirm the inflated, perfect self of his beloved. And then the sensitive narcissist is lost in opposition to this inflation. He experiences deflation - a feeling of emptiness, depression, and despair.

Basically, his self-esteem is low or fluctuates a lot. This is the core of his problem. Many of his actions and achievements are aimed at denying a painful lack of self-esteem and are undertaken in order not to feel it. Sometimes he develops an image of superiority. The narcissist has no connection with his authentic inner self.

Alice Miller wrote: “A person who has lost support due to over-adaptation to adults in his childhood continues to seek admiration and will never be satisfied.

The person who lives with exaggerated ideas about their worth lives in a painful hell of dependence on others and is never free inside.”This brings us to the other extreme of the sliding scale of narcissism: this is a client who is not restrained or shy, but on the contrary, suffers from megalomania demanding admiration from others because he believes in being an extremely special, unique person. Arrogant and aggressive, he fantasizes about unlimited success, power and genius. He is insensitive to the needs of others.

Narcissism is one of the most interesting, often studied, and controversial diagnostic categories. Traditional, conventional psychopathology views narcissism as a personality disorder. According to some researchers, personality consists of permanent structures that are genetically determined. This view may explain the skepticism that exists about the narcissist's healing potential. Now I will briefly outline the history of Gestalt therapy, linking it with the vision and methodology of Gestalt therapy regarding narcissism.

Historically, 70 years ago, Gestalt therapy was a continuation of psychoanalysis. Both therapeutic approaches aimed to support the processes of people towards autonomy. 40 years ago, Gestalt therapy began to form its own theory. In the 60s. In the 20th century, the client's personal history and diagnosis became less important.

For many people at the time, Gestalt was a personal growth movement. In the eighties, Gestalt therapists realized that the viability of the approach can only be guaranteed if training schools graduate professional Gestalt therapists.

In the Netherlands in 1983 we established the Dutch Gestalt Foundation and started an educational program integrating theory and practice. Supervision and teaching therapy have become an important part of the training. Since 1999, our curriculum has been recognized as an academic education, culminating in 4 years of study and training with a Master's degree. These days, in Gestalt therapy, we will not use the image created in the story of Narcissus, so as not to put a label on our client. The main suggestion of Gestalt therapy work is to avoid using labels and medical terminology.

The Gestalt therapist is free in his contact with the client and maintains a phenomenological perspective. He is more interested in describing phenomenology than in attributing meaning. The Gestalt therapeutic approach is process oriented, and the Gestalt therapist is more concerned with adequately describing what is happening on the contact boundary than with hypothesizing about the client's early years or unconscious motivations. The dynamic result of the client's past and present experience, plus his plans for the future, can be perceived in one whole, here and now at the border of contact. A contact boundary is created from contact functions.

A Gestalt therapist can make a clinical assessment of a person's overall functioning mainly by how the client uses their contact functions (external, verbal, listening, etc.) As Gestalt therapists, we must pay attention to the line between narcissistic personality disorder and vulnerability. sensitive narcissistic person. This border is not always clear-cut, so our diagnosis must be very accurate. We also need to be careful when distinguishing between a client who received narcissistic abuse in early childhood from a client who received it later in life.

It is important that the Gestalt therapist pays attention to the functioning of the organizing field of the narcissistic client. This means that he must be aware of the existing violations of contact.

Since “self” can be defined as “the boundary of contact at work,” the question will be: what part of the client's self is violated? Self is a Gestalt term for "I", and "I" develops during childhood, around the age of 2 years.

The three functions of the self are Ego, Id, and Personality

First, the Ego. The ego answers the question: what do I want and what I don’t want? The ego says yes and no. But the narcissistic personality serves through the Ego the thirsty, inflated Personality, so that the ego-function is lost. Second, Id. Id answers the question: what do I need? In the narcissistic client, this function is impaired. As we have seen, he lost his support through adaptation to the needs of adults. And thirdly, Personnelity. Personality answers the question: who am I and who am I not?

The Personality function is the way in which a person presents himself to the world, but within the narcissistic personality, Personality is not formed in contact with the ID (the second function). The narcissistic person will not show their feelings of guilt or shame to the outside world. It operates from a thirsty, bloated Personality.

Further, the contact line of the narcissistic personality is too rigid. This is an important pattern that manifests itself as the narcissistic person takes no risks during contact, avoiding contact mainly through retroflection and egotism. Unhealthy retroflection in this situation means that when such a client is disappointed, he retains his feeling of disappointment within himself and transforms it in the direction of perfection. In this way, he avoids his own rejection by the perfect self, and in doing so, he finds a way to have a good opinion of himself. Selfishness means that by feeling fearful, the client warns himself against losing control. He becomes directed inward and does not open boundaries for the collision, in which the I-Thou relationship becomes “We”.

Now I would like to give some important advice to the gestalt therapist when dealing with such vulnerable narcissistic clients. These tips are the result of my own experience as a gestalt therapist who has been practicing for many years. In general, Gestalt therapy does not deny or diminish the client's feelings. Gestalt is the host.

Since the narcissistic defense is represented by hiding feelings of guilt, shame and depression, acceptance by the Gestalt therapist is most important in order not to lose the client's trust or destroy his confidence in himself. It is all too easy to label a narcissistic client as incurable or unsuitable for therapy. Since our Gestalt therapy responses, interventions and experiments that increase awareness and lead to insights can cause the client to feel ashamed, we need to be very careful. Our strategy must balance on a fine line of contact and we must be accepting and approving.

I remember a client who came to therapy because his partner ended the relationship. It was difficult for me to establish contact with him, because all the time he told me about how wonderful the relationship with his friend was and how much he misses him. About two weeks later, he told me that he met another man and fell in love. My comment was that I was confused by this unexpected change. My embarrassment was part of my own phenomenological background. The client got angry with me, left the office and never came back. It was only then that I realized that I should have been much more careful with him.

Having created an atmosphere of safety, we can move on to the next phase, where we create a field in which more contact with the client becomes possible. However, each new insight can reveal the client's vulnerability again. Our narcissistic clients are sensitive to criticism, and if we have done any harm, we should ask ourselves, along with the client, how this could have happened. We assist him over and over in his ability to self-support in order to help him gain self-esteem and confidence in himself. Two basic conditions of dialogue are very important: inclusion and presence.

Inclusion means being able to look at the world through the eyes of the client, without being in a merger, in order to be able to harmonize with his most sensitive and painful areas. Being present means that you yourself have been touched by others, being authentic and honest with yourself, and that you have attuned yourself to the client. In doing so, you create an environment of respect and partnership in which the client can become who they truly are. Also: take the time to integrate and assimilate new customer experiences.

Thanks.