Narcissistic Personality Disorder

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

Narcissi is a narcissistic personality disorder that takes long and hard work in therapy, somewhat like a layered napoleon cake. Outwardly beautiful and sweet. But behind the attractive façade, there is a completely different story. A history of suffering. Napoleon in structure, Napoleon in essence. Narcissus wants to be the best "cake", but is defeated like a great emperor.

The mental structure in pathological narcissism is similar to the layers of a cake: one hides the other, and there can be many layers of these. And what on the surface may seem like a depressive structure is just a layer behind which the Grandiose Self is hidden. The ideal of the narcissist is Grandiosity in a state of "always". It is as if he wants to be the whole Napoleon cake, huge, largest and best. If he is very afraid of this desire to be omnipotent and better than everyone, then outwardly he will be very invisible, modest and even a failure. If the desire to be the most, most clearly manifested outside, then others sometimes feel how cloying this "cake" is - and are removed.

This Napoleon attracts attention, but the taste of this cake is incomprehensible to anyone. Because the narcissist imitates more, as if he takes someone's qualities that seem to him good, profitable, on loan, like boxes, but they are not as if his family. He himself doubts that all this is his and that he is the real one. Where is his, where is someone else's? What is really his? Are these roses on the cake his, or is he (and those around him) just imagining that they are being seen? Or maybe there are not roses, but roses? Or is there nothing at all? No, this word "nothing", as a certain truth, reality, he is very afraid, as something bad, even terrible, disgusting. Therefore, it is more likely that he sees in others at once, quickly, all their badness. Of course, projecting their unacceptable qualities onto them. And their secrets. They want power. They are the ones who are jealous. They are worthless. Not cakes, but bagels.

A hole from a donut - as in Russian sometimes it is called "nothing", emptiness. Inside the "upset" part of the narcissist is the very emptiness, the donut hole. It is this in the form of helplessness, sensual emptiness, uselessness that appears in the countertransference. Nothing happens, the patient says. But "nothing" - this is the secret inner field of this cake, this Napoleon-Napoleon. And this makes Narcissus scared.

But there is something inside! It is a pain. Suffering. It is real. And the narcissist talks about him more and more during therapy. And then - the firecracker hidden in the cake. Aggression. The core of a narcissist is not just emptiness. As structural changes begin, there is more and more aggression in the office. The analyst collects everything that is projected onto him, all the "bad" parts of the narcissist. And there are also explosions of firecrackers from a cake in the office. But aggression in the office is no longer imaginary, but real. It is no longer "nothing". Since there is someone to be angry with, there is someone else in the office, nearby. Another, with whom communication is possible. And with whom she is important. And this Other hears, feels, accepts, endures, connects, he is alive, he is real. And it is very difficult for a narcissist to see others as real, real, with really existing features, inclinations, qualities that can be valuable, productive, interesting.

In the most common variation, the narcissist comes into therapy with a manifest request to be made the best cake. He wants an eternal dyad with himself, the Grandiose, to be in such a thrilling inner connection. He wants to eat himself, but not be eaten. To savor yourself grandiose.

He wants to go in search of his Grand Ideal, but he cannot take a single step from his grandiose core, because he is inside. The vicious circle of structure, life, relationships, therapy (if he does not stand it and interrupts it at this moment).

Only with continued therapy (a favorable option) will the narcissist be able to see from a healthy position, which will arise in the course of interaction with the analyst, that part of himself that is like a donut with a firecracker. Consider, accept, process, fill with real experiences, reality - and your secret (in other cases - grandiosely convex) worthlessness, and your emptiness, and your anger.

Not everyone will be able to realize that a big ideal napoleon cake is the same bagel with a hole. But the possibilities in therapy for this eat