Jay Reid, LPCC

Table of Contents
Ch. 1 - The narcissistic family’s scapegoat: Survival and Recovery .................................................... 3
Ch. 2 - The Narcissistic Parent: Why they make their children suffer .............................................. 12
Ch. 3 - Beware the altruistic narcissist: “Accept my help…or else!” .................................................. 17
Ch. 4 - The pressure to be as the narcissist insists you are ............................................................... 24

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Ch. 1 - The narcissistic family’s

scapegoat: Survival and recovery
This chapter describes why a malignantly narcissistic parent has to scapegoat a child,
why certain children get picked as the scapegoat, the impact of getting scapegoated and
how to use therapy to recover from this especially pernicious form of abuse.

Sometimes a client comes into therapy telling horrific stories of chronic and systematic
abuse. They recount how their caregivers criticized, humiliated, hurt, degraded and
derided them at every opportunity. What’s made this suffering most destructive is the
abuser’s conviction that it was what the child deserved. There is no sense of
recrimination, accountability, nor guilt for what they put this child through. Rather there
is an inscrutable self-righteousness in their cruel attitudes and behavior towards the
victim. Without fail, there is also a concerted effort to keep this abuse private from the
world at large. The adult child recalls seeing the abusive caregiver charm people outside
the home and keep their demonic cruelty behind closed doors. All the better to discredit
the victim’s credibility if they ever come forward to report the abuse. Welcome to the
world of the narcissistic family’s scapegoat.

Why does a narcissistic family scapegoat a child?

When a family is dominated by a malignantly narcissistic parent a tremendous strain is
put upon the family system. A malignant narcissist needs a victim. They are only
satiated when they feel superior to and in control over someone else. That makes
anyone close to such a person a potential target. In a family system, the collective strain
of the malignant narcissist’s need for a victim gets relieved when a single person is
selected. The other members can breathe a sigh of relief – psychologically speaking –
and join the malignant narcissist in blaming the selected child for all the family’s
unhappiness.

If the malignant narcissist has chosen their enabling spouse correctly, then they enjoy
unchecked authority in the family. Usually, a child cannot be scapegoated without the
implicit permission of an enabler parent. The ringleader of abuse in the family requires
that everyone sees things how she sees them. If she sees the scapegoat as the
abomination then her partner and other children better agree with her. She uses any
means necessary to coerce the enabler parent and the scapegoat’s siblings into
agreement. These other parties are enticed by having the favor of the narcissistic parent
and deterred by the wrath that will follow if they dissent.

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A malignant narcissist loves the sense of power in making others suffer. In other words,
they harbor sadistic intentions. They are exquisitely envious of those who do not put
them first. Envy is an emotion that drives one to want to spoil the good they see because
they do not have it. Lastly, they lack empathy for others. They do not see the fact that
their child is suffering as a reason to stop their behaviors.

Chet* was a therapy client. His mother, Nancy, seemed to have cruelty in her heart
from an early age. She told her classmates in fourth grade that she had cancer “to get
attention”. Her younger brother one time accidentally broke a ceramic doll of hers and
was bleeding profusely. Her face turned to a snarl and she screamed at him for
breaking it. She became a special education teacher after college and curated an image
of a nurturing, patient and kind woman. Meanwhile she would select one student in
each of her classes to harass, control, and undermine. At one point her principal
brought her up on disciplinary charges for “mistreating” one of her students. She
transferred to a different school district and was able to continue her clandestine
cruelty against new students. In relationships, she ensnared men into taking care of
her monetarily and emotionally while complaining that they never appreciated all that
she does for them. She married a man who was passive in their relationship
and quickly set about triangulating with her ex-boyfriend. She would yell at her
husband nightly that he was not communicating enough with her. His response was to
grow more accomodating and ingratiating to her. She decided that she wanted to be a
mother and gave birth to a son. Her son – Chet – was willful, loving, good-hearted,
playful and tough. She hated him for these qualities. Three years later she gave birth to
a daughter – Nathalie – who was much more compliant and admiring towards Nancy.

The arrival of Chet’s younger sister signalled a ratcheting up of Nancy’s scapegoating

of him. In therapy, Chet recalled his mother criticizing him incessantly for eating too
fast, picking his nose, not using correct table manners, leaving his toys out, and so on.
Anything to keep him off-balance within himself. She bossed him around to do chores
for as long as he could remember. He recalled one episode at age 5 when he went to
MacDonald’s with his mother and sister. After they finished eating their happy meals
his mother curtly told him “Throw this away” referring to the whole table’s trash. Chet
remembered feeling enfuriated at her entitlement to his servitude and knew he had to
protest but in a delicate way. His sharp mind thought he’d fashioned the right response
so when he got back to their table he said, “I can’t wait til I grow up and can boss
people around.” Nancy responded by snarling and squinting her eyes with a black look
of murderousness. She bit off these words in a low barking tone: “How dare you say
that I boss you around?! After all that I do for you and this is how you thank me? You
are a selfish, mean little brat. Come on Nathalie, we’re going to the car. Chet you sit
there.” Chet recalled feeling a searing jolt of shame and wanting to crawl out of his
skin. He learned from that moment onward not to speak back – on his own behalf – to
Nancy because her retaliations felt unsurvivable.

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Scapegoating a child goes against the grain (thankfully!) of most of our schemas of
parenting and even humanity. For a parent to go out of their way to blame his or her
child at every turn, to revel in the sense of (false) superiority they derive, and to show no
remorse is antithetical to the meaning of ‘parent’.

The latin root of the word ‘parent’ is ‘bringing forth’. We can think of parents as
responsible for helping their children bring themselves forth into the world. They can do
this in a lot of ways. They may notice and celebrate qualities of their child, take delight in
the child’s displays of happiness, be available for support as needed, and show interest in
what the child thinks, feels, and believes. That names just a few of how a child’s self can
be ‘parented’ into the world.

A child who is scapegoated by a malignantly narcissistic parent actually has no ‘parent’ in

the true sense of the word. He faces an adversary where biology tells him to expect an
ally. More insidiously, a child is prone to believe their parent’s cruelty is their fault. So,
the child earmarked for scapegoating faces one of the most unfair of fights. He must
cope with the loss of an adult to help him bring himself forth and face the searing
psychological torment of thinking he’s at fault for the loss. Thus, a malignant narcissist
gets to land her ’emotional punches’ on the child with impunity and great effect.

What makes a “good” Scapegoat?

In my personal and professional experience, children selected as scapegoats – like Chet –
usually stand out. They possess a presence that is palpable to others. They often have a
keen sense of fairness and instinctively protest injustice. They are perceptive and can
see bad character when it’s present. They are often very empathic and care about
others’ feelings. They are often protective of people they care about. They can be very
intelligent. Most of all, they are tough. The malignant narcissist only chooses a child as a
scapegoat who can take it. The former wants to see the child suffer but not so much that
they cannot keep hurting them habitually.

Chet recalls one noble act that likely sealed his fate as the child to be scapegoated.
Despite his younger sister’s alliance with his mother, Chet felt protective of her at a
young age. On Nancy’s birthday, Chet and Nathalie at ages 6 and 3 respectively, made
Nancy dinner as a present. In the course of making meatballs, Chet recalls they
decided to crunch up some graham crackers and put it in the mixture. As they sat
down to eat this precociously prepared meal for a couple of kids, they giggled with
each other. Nathalie asked her mother if she tasted anything different. When Nancy
said she did not, Chet and Nathalie laughed harder. Nathalie told her mother: “We put
graham cracker crust in them!”. Nancy stopped chewing, slammed her fork on the
plate, and looked with rage at her daughter. Chet saw this and forcefully exclaimed:
“Hey! Stop it! Don’t treat her like that. It was just a joke. Why are you so

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upset?”. Nancy looked at Chet and seemed to realize she could not continue her
planned tirade against Nathalie. Chet felt good that he could stop her abuse of his
sister even though nobody stood up for him when he was Nancy’s target.

The courage and protectiveness that Chet displayed, likely made Nancy aware of how
much more he possessed than she did. Her systematic abuse of him seemed driven by
her hatred of him for being more decent than she could ever be as a human being. She
knew that she was governed by the need to be cruel while he was driven by the need to
love and protect.

The hellish life of the scapegoated child

A scapegoated child knows depths of private suffering that can only be described as
‘hellish’. They are born with the biological need for care from people who hate them. It is
like being thirsty and the only person who has water instead gives you sand –
then mockingly laughs. A scapegoated child is attacked for some trumped-up
charge, mercilessly punished and then denied appeal. They are constantly invalidated in
their perspective. The family’s goal is to convince the scapegoated child that he or she is
the sole reason for the family’s unhappiness. The child may come to believe that life is
only worth living if he can figure out how to not be who he is.

When a child is cast as the enemy in his own family there is tremendous pressure to turn
against himself. The adage – tragically – can apply: “If you can’t beat ’em join ’em”.
Except that the scapegoated child has to join in the collective hatred of his existence. As
discussed elsewhere, the child fears loss of attachment worse than abuse. At least
getting mistreated involves contact.

People who make it through childhood as a scapegoat often have to stow away their
awareness of their good qualities. The child must hide his own appreciation of who he is
lest he lose whatever connection is available or get abused even worse. The narcissistic
parent wants the scapegoated child to believe they are as horrible as they are being
told. If the child shows a sense of self-worth or self-possession the narcissistic parent
will take this as an affront to their authority. In essence “How dare my child not think
he’s as bad as I say he is! He must not respect me. I will make him pay.” To avoid this
outcome, scapegoated children develop a set of self-defeating beliefs about themselves.
These beliefs keep the narcissistic parent from attacking even harder.

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Common beliefs of adults scapegoated as children

Belief #1: “I am physically disgusting.”

Sometimes scapegoated children are more physically attractive than their narcissistic
parent. Through no fault of their own, this simple fact about them can roil the parent. As
the child meets positive receptions for his or her looks outside the home, he or she may
feel a deep sense of fear and confusion. “Why are people saying I’m pretty (or
handsome)?”. The child may be particularly wary of the malignant narcissist catching
wind of this. He likely knows that something bad happens when others tell him he is
handsome etc.

One way to undo the threat posed by his or her good looks is to – unconsciously –
distort one’s perception of the bodily self. An otherwise good-looking kid may decide
that he or she is fat, has a big nose, too many pimples, has ugly hair, etc. If the threat of
reprisal is great enough from the narcissistic parent, the scapegoated child
can simply take such distortions as brute facts of his or her existence. It’s not that she
thinks she’s fat, ugly, etc. It’s that she just is this way. As uncomfortable as such
perceptions are to live with, they are preferable to the cruelty that would ensue by the
narcissitic parent who feels shown up. The psychology profession calls this phenomena
Body Dysmorphic Disorder or BDD. Not everyone with BDD was scapegoated in their
families of origin, but I do believe it can lead to this condition.

Belief #2: “If I am not being productive, I am worthless.”

Scapegoated children can find the narcissistic parent’s hatred too violent to
withstand. One way to cope with the horrific fact that your parent hates you for who
you are is to substitute the idea that they hate you for what you do. Making this shift can
afford the scapegoated child enough psychological breathing space to go on
functioning. The reason is that this strategy offers hope that the parent might have a
change of heart if the child can just “do right”. Things do not feel as unfixable.

The drawback to this survival strategy is that the scapegoated child is thrust in to an
endless loop of trying in the face of failure. No matter what the scapegoated child tries:
do his chores perfectly, buy the narcissistic parent a gift, get good grades, etc., the
parent will ultimately find them to be objectionable. In this system the child may
redouble her efforts to ‘succeed’ rather than surrender to the horrible reality they
face. As adults they may feel ill-at-ease when not doing some activity to ‘better
themselves’ in some way or another. Stretches of free time can feel foreboding because

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the privilege of enjoying their own company was one their parent actively worked to
forbid them.

Belief #3:”I am always one mistake away from complete

ruin.”
Scapegoated children often feel like their existence hangs in the balance of each
moment. Something final, awful and dreadful could happen if they make the ‘wrong
move’. A narcissistic parent who has scapegoated the child is already going to find them
to be in the wrong. The ensuing onslaught of yelling, beating, or worse is how they
terrorize the child. Somewhere in themselves, the scapegoated child knows that their
fate is going to be awful: the narcissistic parent is going to thrash them, it’s just a
question of when and how. The child must find a way to manage the monumental
anxiety they experience in the face of such ongoing threat. One way to do this is to boil
down their existence to each moment. No looking forward. No looking
backward. Just what’s here right now. The looming dread of what could happen but it
exists more in the shadows. The payoff to this strategy – again – is the ability to go on
functioning in the face of chronic efforts to destroy their quality of life.

It’s important to note that boiling everything down to the present moment is different
from being “in the now”. One can only be mindful when they feel sufficiently safe to do
so. A scapegoated child is not afforded the necessary goodwill and space to be present
in the mindful kind of way. This is more like taking a snapshot instead of a video. To only
look at this moment rather than how they are being treated over time. To do the latter
would bring to awareness how hopelessly mistreated they have been and the lack of any
viable escape routes.

Belief #4:”I am defective.”

A malignantly narcissistic parent wants to drill into the scapegoat the notion that he or
she is inherently defective. If a child is scapegoated from an early age, he or she may feel
a deep sense that there is something wrong with them. Objectively, there is so much
right with such children and so much wrong with the narcissistic parent but that is not
what gets internalized for the child. The child may have natural social grace or a good
sense of humor but fear social interactions. They may shy away from making friends and
later relationship partners out of compliance with what feels like a fundamental truth
about themselves. Similarly, they may be athletically gifted but feel overmatched in
competitive situations and unable to utilize their potential.

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Belief #5:”I have no skills or talents.”

Scapegoated children are forbidden to know what they are good at. To do so would be
to defy the narcissist’s contention that they are good-for-nothing. As stated above, the
narcissist would take the child’s possession of their skills or talents as an affront to their
authority. Such children grow to know this. This belief protects them from the
narcissist’s envious attack. It also protects the child from having something of value –
like self-esteem or pride – and getting it ripped away by the parent. Managing such
losses is a high priority for the scapegoated child. He or she can only bear so many. A
low-level ongoing sense of diminishment is much preferable to the traumatic loss of a
cherished sense of themselves.

Belief #6:”If I disagree, I will be hated and exiled.”

This belief is a simple observation for the scapegoated child. They know that if they defy
the malignant narcissist’s claims that the child is the source of unhappiness that they will
suffer an even worse fate. Scapegoated children are often threatened with exile from
the family – and to great unfortunate effect. Despite how torturous the child is
treated in the family, the threat of being exiled can feel even worse. Such children learn
to present a compliant and agreeable persona to the family members to avoid their
hatred and expulsion. The child must police his impulses, reactions, and perceptions to
suppress any expression that would be taken as disagreement.

As adults, scapegoated children may find themselves paralyzed with fear when they
consider dissenting in work environments or with their partners. Disagreeing with
someone brings oneself into the forefront. The act delineates the self in stark relief. It is
what allows for ‘dialogue’ in the true sense of the word. Martin Buber would refer to this
as the “I-thou” kind of relationship where two subjectivities are brought into authentic
contact with one another. A person can feel safe to disagree when they can expect to be
received with curiosity, non-defensiveness, and responsiveness. Scapegoated children
were not afforded such receptions. Instead they had to hide themselves at all times. The
bringing forth of themselves that an act of disagreement requires was simply too
dangerous.

This coping strategy can (wrongly) lead the scapegoated child to conclude that he or she
cares too much about what other people think. In fact, I hear this a lot from adults
who were scapegoated as children. Importantly, we all care what others think about us
when we disagree. Some people have had the fortune to believe that others will think
good things about them for disagreeing. People who were scapegoated have the

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misfortune to believe that others will think hateful things about them for disagreeing. I
believe that any human being who expects to be hated and exiled by those he needs
most would avoid disagreeing. In therapy, the task is not to to shed the concern of what
others think of them. Rather, the task is to consider how people today probably think
quite well of them when they disagree. So, still care about what others think but find a
way to pay attention to the good news that people outside of their family will welcome
their perspective even when it expresses disagreement.

Therapy to recover from being scapegoated

Chet was a twenty-something single successful software engineer when he came to
therapy. He reported that although he is able to get done what needs getting done at
work and has some friends, inside he felt miserable. He felt anxiety and dread at what
others thought of him, difficulty knowing what to do in his free time, and a chronic
sense of dis-ease in his own skin.

At first, Chet said he grew up in a supportive family. As a therapist, I have found that
suffering at the level that Chet experienced usually does not spring from a rosy
upbringing. And here went our exchange:

Me: How might your mother react when angry at you?

Chet: Well she would scream at me and slam things down. She’d call me selfish,
inconsiderate, and that I don’t care about the family at all. But, I mean, she was right.
She wouldn’t have yelled if I wasn’t such a bad kid.”

Me: Chet, there is no way you were bad enough to warrant that kind of abuse.

And so began Chet’s path to recovery from his malignantly narcissistic mother’s
scapegoating of him. For individuals who have survived a childhood of
being targetedly and chronically undermined in their development, the task of therapy is
to bust the myths about themselves they were forced to believe and find it safe to know
the truth about themselves – that they are a good and deserving person.

Therapy may begin with client’s identifying ways they are flawed. “I care too much about
what others think”, “I can’t stay self-disciplined”, “I am not a good communicator”, and so
on. It can be important to acknowledge these concerns while also challenging
them. Scapegoated children have no trouble taking responsibility for their shortcomings
– the problem lies in taking credit for their strengths. Over time – sometimes significant
lengths of time – such clients can come to question their critical view of
themselves. They gradually shift the focus of their inner torment from themselves to
their families of origin. As this shift takes hold, the client will dare to find less wrong with

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themselves and look for the source of what feels wrong in their scapegoating family.
Often clients who have been scapegoated are very empathic with everyone but
themselves. As the legacy of scapegoating gets identified and challenged, clients can
direct some of that empathy towards themselves. A massive achievement comes when
clients are able to regard their own needs to be as important as others.

In essence, therapy helps client feel emotionally and psychologically safe to do, feel, and
be the things that their malignantly narcissistic parent and enabling family members
would have seen as an affront to their authority.

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Ch. 2 - The narcissistic parent:

Why they make their children
suffer
This chapter addresses the psychology of a narcissistic mother or father and why it is so
likely to end in abuse for their children. Life can feel confusing for a child born into a
family headed by a narcissistic mother or father. Particularly if that child was the
family scapegoat, it can seem like everything they do is wrong and everything the
narcissistic parent does is right. In recovering from a childhood of narcissistic abuse, it
can be very important to understand the psychology of the narcissistic mother or
father. Doing so, can allow survivors to finally know the truth of who they actually are in
relation to their abusive parent.

The Narcissist’s Core Sense of Worthlessness

Narcissistic mothers and fathers suffer an unbearable sense of low and fragile self-
esteem. They believe they are worthless. Worse, they are so convinced of their
wretchedness that they cannot acknowledge it. Doing so feels like it would end in their –
psychological – destruction.

Antidotes to the worthlessness

Grandiosity: Artificially inflated view of themselves
A narcissist tries to solve their feelings of worthlessness by keeping them out of
awareness. The first tact in this solution is to adopt a conscious belief of their own
superiority and specialness. In psychology, we call this ‘grandiosity’. Put simply, the
narcissist believes their feelings, capabilities, thoughts and needs are more important
than others’. Most importantly, all of these positive views of themselves are antidotal to
their sense of worthlessness. Their grandiosity is achieved through denial and force of
thought. They have to constantly renew this antidotal self-conceit or risk the
breakthrough pain of their inner wretchedness. So, the equilibrium they achieve is
always fragile and vulnerable to disruption.

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Entitlement: Expectation that others will comply with their

inflated view of themselves
The next step involves their expectation that others will comply with their
grandiosity. They unconsciously expect and demand that others reflect back to them
how special and full of worth they are. In other words, they feel entitled to others’
constant admiration and prioritization. Children and passive relationship partners are
common targets of this function.

Disruptions of antidotes lead to ‘breakthrough’

worthlessness
These two antidotes are temporarily effective in alleviating the narcissist’s immediate
sense of worthlessness. As in all band-aid approaches, however, they must be in
constant operation to achieve the protective effect. The narcissist must avoid
disruptions of his grandiosity and entitlement otherwise his sense of worthlessness could
‘breakthrough’ to his awareness. Such disruptions often come in the form of other
people’s needs, differences of opinion, or just failure to notice how ‘special’ the narcissist
is.

Disruptions of the narcissist’s grandiosity

When someone else expresses a need the narcissist does not see it as an opportunity to
attune to that person and strengthen the bond between them. Instead she sees the
other’s need to mean that hers are not as important. As such, the narcissist may avoid
people with enough self-worth to feel deserving of having their needs met. If the
narcissist cannot avoid someone else with a need – such as their own child – then she
will employ other devices to coerce that person to stifle himself. Common tactics used to
punish another with needs include: shaming him for being ‘needy’ or ‘selfish’, outright
neglect, dismissing his needs as illegitimate, and/or accusing him of seeking attention.
The goal for the narcissist is to make the person feel worse after expressing a need to
her than if he kept it to himself. Once he refrains from expressing his needs, he no longer
challenges the narcissist’s belief that her – grandiose – needs are all that should matter
in this world.

Disruptions of the narcissist’s entitlement

The other component to the narcissist’s antidotal self-conceit is their expectation that
others comply with her grandiosity. She requires that others be willing to abandon their
own interests, pursuit of happiness, even their sense of themselves

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to prioritize hers. Any indication that someone else is not willing to do this can be
met with indignation, retaliation, and rage.

Hiding the narcissist’s selfishness

Grandiosity and entitlement require ongoing self-absorption and self-inflation. Two
attributes that are unflatteringly selfish. Nobody is going to announce that they deem
themselves better than everyone else and expect consensus on that point. Doing so,
would risk rebuke from others. Such a reaction would compromise how the narcissist has
to see herself and be seen by others.

The narcissist is in a dilemma. His only way to remedy feeling worthless risks him feeling
even more worthless if his remedy becomes widely known. He now must hide his
grandiosity and entitlement from himself and others.

The process of hiding their antidotal strategy involves ‘finding’ the self-absorption and
self-inflation in another person instead of herself. This all happens unconsciously. Since
the narcissist cannot bear to acknowledge how worthless she feels nor how self-
absorbed she is, she must convince herself that these attributes are in others – not her.

Victims of narcissistic abuse are no strangers to being called ‘selfish’. This is because a
narcissist is quick to identify and distort others’ healthy senses of entitlement as ‘selfish’
or evidence that they think they deserve special treatment. In essence, a narcissist
accuses others of being exactly who he is.

2 deficits needed to be a narcissist: Lack of

empathy and remorse
Narcissist’s are unwilling to care how their coercive actions impact others. Research has
shown that they consistently lack in empathy for the feelings of others. They may be
able to read and use others’ feelings for their own purposes. However, they will
not unconditionally care about the emotional well-being of someone else – particularly if
it interferes with securing their own emotional needs.

Second and relatedly a narcissist is remorseless in whatever they do to prop up their

antidotal self-conceit. Many of my clients with narcissistic parents have had the
experience of getting blamed all over again when they’ve tried to confront that parent
about their abusive treatment. The narcissist would rather claim that their child deserved
the abuse than take accountability for how they hurt him or her.

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What happens when a narcissist becomes a

parent?
The child of a narcissist is almost doomed to interrupt their narcissistic parent’s antidotal
self-conceit. A young baby is a bundle of needs – by design. They are entirely dependent
on their caregiver and can only offer their continued existence as thanks. For most
caregivers this is more than enough. It is, in fact, why they had a child: to experience the
gratification of meeting the needs of someone they love.

For a narcissistic parent, the child may be welcome so long as he reflects back the
parent’s self-importance. The kid has to orbit the parent. This is unnatural, since children
have appropriate developmental needs to experience themselves as the center of the
universe and their parents as their satellites. If a child shows that he expects the
narcissistic parent to orbit him, the narcissist will take this as a blow to her inflated self-
esteem. This kind of parent expects her child to keep her at the forefront of his mind, so
when he attends to himself he is violating her pathological sense of entitlement that her
self-importance should always be mirrored back to her. As discussed above, such
violations can evoke the sense of worthlessness the narcissist is always working to deny.
These violations are inevitable so long as the kid tries to hold onto his own perspective
and needs. The attributes of the narcissistic parent described above will coerce the kid to
relinquish his connection to himself and find a way to orbit the narcissistic parent. And
here is how that process often unfolds*:

1) The child interrupts the narcissistic parent’s sense of superiority and entitlement that
others reflect it. This may happen by the child being proud of himself, focusing on
himself, failing to show ‘enough appreciation’ to the parent, etc.

2) The parent must restore their antidotal self-conceit but must do so while hiding the
selfishness of this motive.

3) The narcissistic parent unconsciously re-locates her own selfishness in the child. She
may distort a benign act on the part of the child to ‘prove’ how inordinately selfish that
child is.

4) The narcissistic parent then works to control the child so that he accepts her claim of
being the selfish one. In a parent-child relationship the parent holds all the real power. If
the parent reacts to the child as though he is selfish, the child can fairly easily buy into
this. The child’s need for her to be willing to care for him dooms him.

Once the narcissistic parent has successfully relocated her inherent selfishness in the
child, she can then work to put her own worthlessness in him too. If the child is
branded as selfish, it is not a far leap to treat him as though he is worthless too. The
narcissistic parent can convince herself and the other family members that the child

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deserves such maltreatment given how selfish he is. Such claims of selfishness almost
always undergird the narcissistic parent’s attempts to make the child feel worthless. In
the ultimate act of ‘better than you than me’ the narcissistic parent finds some relief
from their own worthlessness if she sees her child as the worthless one. If this attitude
persists, the child may adopt it as his own and find various ways to comply with the
narcissist’s insistence that he is worthless.

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Ch. 3 - Beware the altruistic

narcissist: “Accept my help…or
else!”
Narcissism comes in many forms. I suppose the one common denominator is that those
around the narcissist either feel ‘less-than’ or face harsh repudiation. I want to focus on
the altruistic narcissist because her cloak of kindness can confuse her victims. Such
narcissists go way out of their way to curate the image of a selfless caregiver. This image
is insincere. It is there to combat an inner sense of worthlessness rather than
to genuinely care about and protect others.

In this post, I will explain how narcissists can use surface-level altruism as an antidote to
their core sense of worthlessness. This antidotal altruism requires tremendous inward
self-absoprtion and self-conceit. Two features that do not align with the concept of
altruism. As a result, such narcissists must work extra hard to ‘see’ their hyper self-focus
(or ‘selfishness’) in others rather than themselves. I will then describe the signs of an
altruistic narcissist, followed by a case description of a client’s* mother who abused him
to be a prop for her altruistic ‘act’.

A review of the narcissist’s psychology

All narcissists suffer a core sense of deep worthlessness that they cannot bear to
acknowledge. In order to keep this dreadful feeling out of awareness they inflate their
sense of importance and specialness. This is also known as developing a grandiose sense
of self. Grandiosity alone, however, does not sufficiently battle the sense of
worthlessness. They also need others to comply with this inflated view of who they
are. To this end, they will exert coercive influence on the people around them to mirror
back what they want to see…or else! Their expectations for others to comply with their
exaggerated expectations is called a ‘sense of entitlement’.

Entitlement and grandiosity are ‘antidotes’ the narcissist uses to solve their inner sense
of worthlessness. Psychological antidotes usually do not work because they are not
grounded in connection to another person. Psychological suffering compounds when
treated in isolation. It is only through the sincere reaching out to others and receiving
what is needed that suffering gets effectively relieved. A narcissist often does not
believe it is possible to confide in others about how bad they feel inside. The shame they
feel is too intense. As a result, the way the deal with others

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is inherently insincere. Others are used as props for the management of their very fragile
self-esteem but there is never any real connection.

The narcissist’s antidotes leave them psychologically alone. This fact can evoke
understandable sympathy. At the same time, the way such people go about coping with
their inner worthlessness does tremendous damage to others. One thing I have come to
appreciate in this profession is the varying capacity of people to bear the burdens of life.
Most of the survivors of narcissistic abuse show great such capacity. Narcissists, I
believe, have a very low capacity to bear adversity. Instead, they foist the responsibility
for what they cannot bear onto those around them. And typically those getting
burdened are more capable of bearing it.

Leveraging altruism for the narcissist’s purposes

Some narcissists are pretty transparent in their grandiosity. Others are less so. Altruistic
narcissists view themselves as supreme caregivers. They base their inflated self-concept
on this supposed ‘ability’. Then they expect others to react to them as though they are
the caring, generous, people they want to seem like. As a result, it can sometimes take a
little longer to identify this kind of narcissist.

Parenthood can seem very appealing to the altruistic narcissist. They get
to demonstrate their – supposed – superior caregiving abilities to a child whom they may
assume will be nothing but appreciative. What a rude awakening when the child comes
into this world as a bundle of joy – and needs! Children by design require an adult who is
ready to give a lot more than they receive from the child. That is not what the child of an
altruistic narcissist gets.

The altruistic narcissist can maintain her fragile self-esteem so long as her grandiose
sense of self and entitlement to others’ reflections of that self go uninterrupted. Her
primary occupation in life is to keep thinking this way about herself. She
is utterly incapable of lasting and sincere loving feelings towards another person. As
appealing as parenthood may have seemed, the reality of a child looking up at her with
the expectation of being met with genuine love and affection can actually feel terrible
for this type of parent. The altruistic narcissist is faced with the fact that she does
not really want to provide care to her own child. Her identity as a ‘nurturer’ is a sham
and her inability to feel love for her child proves it. If she admits this to herself, then her
inflated self-concept crumbles and she would be left with her dreaded worthlessness.

On top of the unflattering realization of her lack of genuine care for others, parenthood
poses constant interruptions to her antidotal grandiosity and entitlement. Such
interruptions can lead to the parent feeling their dreaded worthlessness. A child’s rightful
and persistent needs for care, feeding, attention and love are about the child – not the
parent. For most parents, this is not a problem. For a narcissistic parent, the volume and
intensity of the child’s needs requires her to interrupt her focus on herself. Unless she

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can feel appreciated by the baby or others are witnessing how ‘well’ she is parenting, the
narcissistic parent will see little motivation to offer care. Doing so, does not reinforce her
inflated sense of being a caregiver because she cannot get her child to comply with it.

Some clients who were raised by a narcissistic parent have a feeling that in order
to receive care from another they must find a way to make it in that person’s self-
interest. That is, they can expect care so long as it benefits the other person somehow.
They may feel a mandate to show immense gratitude or flattery at an act of kindness
towards them. These feelings were come by honestly because that is exactly what their
narcissistic parent required from them. Therapy often allows them to see this pattern as
a reflection of their ability to adapt to and survive a very awful and one-sided
relationship.

Sarah’s mother saw herself as a nurturing woman. She worked as a psychologist. In

therapy, Sarah recalled her mother flying into rages whenever she left any toys out as
a young child. As Sarah grew, her mother reacted to her as though all of her needs
were ‘too much’. She insisted that Sarah always watch herself from taking ‘needed’
attention away from ‘those that needed it’ – like her younger brother. In one of the
most searingly painful moments of Sarah’s childhood, Sarah was asking for her
mother’s attention to a drawing she had made and her mother pulled her aside and
contemptuously said, “You know Sarah, the world does NOT revolve around you!”.

Sarah’s mother is a good example of a caregiving narcissist. She curated an image as

maternal provider yet consistently met her daughter’s real needs with contempt,
exasperation and blame.

The altruistic narcissist must hide her selfishness

at all costs
All of the narcissist’s efforts to prop herself up are to stave off the core feeling of
worthlessness. The keystone of the altruistic narcissist’s propping involves her persona
as a ‘selfless’ provider to others. However, the strategies of inflating her sense of
importance and expecting others to comply are inherently self-absorbed aims. The
altruistic narcissist must fiercely deny this fact because it could unravel what is staving
off her worthlessness.

Her own self-absorption gets denied by unconsciously relocating this quality in others
and reacting to them as though they are the selfish ones. This relocation is best done in
relationships where the narcissist has more authority. The child of an altruistic narcissist
offers a convenient target. The child’s existence and expectation for love reminds the
narcissistic parent of how little she can care about anyone but herself. In order
to combat this reminder, she will work to see her child as defective to excuse her
inability to love him. Part of this accused defectiveness may include perceiving and
reacting to him as though he is the selfish one. When a kid is told by his mother that

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asking for a piece of candy means that all he cares about is himself and he
is incredibly selfish, he tends to believe her. The narcissistic mother in this case can
more readily claim that she remains selfless and altruistic but had the rotten luck of
giving birth to the world’s most selfish child. Quite a ruse but not uncommon in
households with a narcissistic parent.

4 Signs of an altruistic narcissist

In my personal and professional experience I have identified the following features of
many altruistic narcissists.

Very low patience

When an altruistic narcissist “gives” something to another person, they are doing it
– solely – to get a reflection of their grandiose “caring” self. If the other person requires
more than a quick symbolic gesture, the narcissist may quickly grow impatient and show
frustration with the recipient.

John had an altruistically narcissistic mother. She would scream at and berate him
when he ‘misbehaved’ (which seemed to be three times per day at least) then act as if
she had done nothing wrong. After yelling at him in shrieking and murderous tones the
night before for not taking the trash out, she came into his room in a stark
contrast sweetly said she could take him to school the next day. When John awoke, his
morning routine made him a few minutes late to be ready to get in the car with
her. The entire car ride was filled with her yelling at him for his ‘inconsiderateness’ and ‘
selfishness’ that she was now going to be made late for getting to work.

Children like John of an altruistic narcissistic parent learn to make it easy for others to
care for them. They intuitively knew their parent did not have much in the tank for them
so they best not test the parent’s willingness show care to them.

Constantly expect gratitude

An altruistic narcissist not only expects to have to expend very little real effort to help
someone else but they also require shows of gratitude.

John recalled how much he hated opening presents on Christmas mornings. He had to
train himself to show wide-eyed surprise, delight, and demonstrations of appreciation
whenever he opened a gift from his mother. He knew that if he did not do that and
walk across the room to hug her, that she would grow angry and abusive towards him.

Such people will vary in how explicitly they convey this expectation. If they have power
or authority over someone, then they may brazenly show they expect gratitude. Insisting
that the other says “thank you” right away, for instance. If they are not in a position of

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power and the other person does not meet their standard of gratitude then the narcissist
may just seethe and speak ill of that person when they can.

Like to enforce rules

Rules are a means to an end for the altruistic narcissist. They find ways to be on the side
of enforcing rules and take satisfaction in catching and punishing the rule breakers. It
gives them an opportunity to see someone else as ‘worthless’ and deserving of
punishment. As discussed above, seeing others as worthless offers an antidotal relief
from their own sense of worthlessness.

John’s mother would set up rules around their household that centered around him
doing certain chores. Everytime she screamed and verbally abused him it was on the
premise that he had broken one of these rules. She felt justified in her treatment of him
because he was so ‘defiant’ and ‘disobedient’. John knew that she seemed
to sadistically enjoy catching him breaking these rules and the ensuing punishments
she then got to administer to him.

Take on ‘lost cause’ friends and partners

A lot of times an altruistic narcissist will presume to know what is best for a friend or
partner better than that person does. The narcissist will then target this person as the
‘defective’ one who needs the narcissist to fix him or her. She may talk about this person
as though they are a ‘lost cause’ and just can’t seem to make the ‘right’ choices. They
may grow frustrated and angry with this person for not following their advice and
prescriptions. They see such people as having a deficit and this helps the narcissist
again relocate their own sense of worthlessness.

‘Everyone’s best friend’: The case of

an altruistically narcissistic mother
Nancy was born to two alcoholic parents. Her mother was concerned with
appearances in public and modeled chronic deceitful and mean-spirited behavior in
private. Her father was an accomplished soldier but recused himself from taking an
active role in the family. She identified with her mother’s contemptuous attitude
towards her brother and father. The attention paid to Nancy was as a trophy: her
parents would bring her and her brother out to their drunken parties and show off how
‘well-behaved’ their kids were. Nancy would repeatedly try to be the adult and
admonish her parents for drinking.

She learned that she did not really matter in this world except for the purposes she
could serve for others. She hated this predicament to her core and could not stand to
know how worthless she felt. From an early age, she carried a reservoir of rage that she
would find opportunities to release when she could get away with it. On the one hand

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she had to act like a ‘well-behaved’ caring young woman but on the other she wanted
to make others pay for how excruciating life felt for her. Thus began her life of
profound self-deception – on the surface acting saintly while privately being wicked.

Nancy adorned herself with trappings of altruism to keep her rage at bay. She studied
education in college and became a teacher for students labelled as
“Socially and Emotionally Disturbed’. By teaching a group of students who were
marginalized already by the school system, she was afforded extra cover for when she
grew overly punitive at a pupil. She would typically identify one male student in her
class as a ‘behavior problem’ – usually the most strong-willed of the group. She could
then blame her cold and punitive ways on the student. “I’m trying to be a good teacher,
but I just cannot get through a lesson without ________ acting up.” Such statements to
her colleagues served as justification for her hateful and sharp ways of speaking to the
student. She would also devise special ways to antagonize him so that she could have
an excuse to take her rage out on him. Creating an arbitrary reason why he could not
go to recess – at the minute all the kids were headed out the door – was one of her
favorite tacts. The boy would often cry out in exasperated fury – which would justify
her holding him back in the classroom and terrorizing him with threats of expulsion or
suspension for the duration of the recess.

She married a man who was very pliable and deferent towards her. When she gave
birth to her first child – a son – she assumed imperious authority over how he
should be raised. Her husband readily stood out of her way or colluded with her when
she blamed her son for her inability to love him. She curated an image amongst her
friends as a doting mother. Once she was alone with her son, however, she had no
patience for him.

Most parents experience an internal wealth of love from which to meet their child’s
needs and demands. It gives them meaning and joy to do so. Nancy, in contrast, did
not have this wealth to rely upon. She would muster energy to care for her son if others
were around. Behind closed doors she could quickly grow weary of him. She would
exclaim “What?!” if he called to her in such moments. Her tone carried a combination
of threat and exasperation.

She could not bear to know that when she saw what made most people fill with love
and joy – say her son playing with blocks – she felt nothing. But it was worse than
‘nothing’ she would grow angry at him for reminding her of how vacant she was. She
always preferred to be filled with rage instead of emptiness in such moments. Her rage
could be directed away from herself and towards the boy. Maybe he was not obeying
her instructions. That’s why he deserved her wrath. There was nothing wrong with her
for feeling nothing for her child. If he were less rotten she could certainly be filled with
the motherly love she must possess…right?

She found that she could only feel like the good mother she wanted to be when
watched by others. So, she made sure to get out into public as often as possible with

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her son. Just as her own parents paraded her to her friends, she paraded her son to
reinforce the wished-for claim that she was good on the inside.

For Nancy, everyone in her life became bit players with the sole function to hide how
empty and cruel-hearted she felt. It seemed that as long as she could secretively target
someone as the source of her inability to love, she could function well in the world. She
gave birth to a daughter three years after her son. This child was much closer in
character to Nancy. She did not stand up to her the way her son often would. Her
daughter was a much more willing co-conspirator in Nancy’s efforts to blame someone
else for her cruel intentions. As her son grew and became more and more the target for
her rage, she would often act proportionately kind to her daughter. It was as if she
could blame her internal bitterness on her son and used her daughter to promote the
wished-for truth that she could be sincerely kind and good. However, it was all an act
and she knew it. She had to divorce her husband after 14 years of marriage because he
had grown weary of her rage fits and had left her for another woman. She received
custody of her children and this gave her free reign to continue splitting up her
children psychologically with impunity.

She died from brain cancer ate age 50. Her son had taken to caring for her while she
met her end. At one point while he was helping carry her back to the bed, she said,
“You’ve always been my true strength”. This statement made no sense to him at the
time. He had always thought of himself as a bad person. Why else would she have
treated him so wickedly? Years later in therapy he grew to understand that she was
crediting him with bearing the truth she could not. He knew firsthand how little
genuine care, love, or empathy she could hold towards him – or anybody. And he bore
all that she saddled him with and did not break. For someone whose psychological life
depended on a lie, having a son she could hate instead of herself really did mean ‘being
her true strength’.

At Nancy’s funeral service, the pastor and attendees liked to say that she was
‘everyone’s best friend’. Everyone extolled the virtues she worked so hard to curate:
her care for those less fortunate, her willingness to listen to others, and her nurturing
ways. Even the son who knew the other side of her joined this chorus. He gave a eulogy
that portrayed as she insisted on being seen – at the time it was
not psychologically safe enough for him to speak the truth of who she was. Years later
as her influence wane, he would gain clarity on who she actually was and how he was
never the horrible things she claimed he was.

Conclusion
The altruistic narcissist may seem caring but closer examination shows that this is all a
ruse. Therapy can help victims recover the sense of goodness that comes under assault
by an altruistic narcissist.

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Ch. 4 - The pressure to be as the

narcissist insists you are
There is a form of psychological abuse committed by narcissistic parents that is hard to
identify for a child. It is a psychological process that is designed to mess with the child’s
sense of himself or herself. In fact, therapists sometimes get paid the ‘big bucks’ so that
they can bring all of their professional and personal training in therapy to know when it’s
happening and work to resolve it. Outside of trained professionals, it can be very difficult
get out of these interpersonal knots.

I am referring to a process called projective identification. In today’s blog I will describe

this tactic in detail. Next, I will offer an anonymized case example of Terry* and his
narcissistically abusive mother. Through the example, several features of projective
identification will be illustrated. Last, I will offer one way of recovering from this kind of
abuse.

Pathological Projective Identification

Pathological projective identification involves a parent relocating an unbearable sense of
himself or herself and ‘finding’ it in their child (Seligman, 2018). Next, the parent acts
coercively to influence the child to see the relocated fragment of the parent’s experience
as the child’s own. In essence, the parent influences the child to identify with what he or
she is projecting. This is a fragile arrangement, however, and the parent must continually
work to keep the location of the unwanted experience in the child rather than himself.

A case example
The process of projective identification is illustrated in how an adult male client named
Terry* described the nearly nightly bouts of emotional and verbal abuse he suffered at
the hands of his mother throughout his teenage years. Terry’s mother came from a
very well-heeled family and she idealized her tycoon father whose professional success
stood in contrast to his ability to act paternally towards her. He was rarely home and
insisted on seeing her as a sychophantal ally for her to have any sort of interaction
with him. Her father had enemies in her family – including her mother and her
brother. Terry’s mother felt compelled to be on her father’s side in these disputes. In
therapy, Terry recalled knowing it was a matter of when not if his mother would decide

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he had done something ‘selfish’ and scream at him for being uncaring and
irresponsible.

In treatment we worked to reconstruct what triggered his mother’s attacks at

him. Rather than Terry being a ‘selfish kid’ as he was coerced to conclude growing up,
his therapist inferred that his mother was relocating her own intolerable feelings of
selfishness and finding them in Terry. Attending to herself in her own childhood would
have compromised her ability to comply with the strictures her father insisted upon if
she were to be in his life. She seemed practiced in denying her own needs and seeing
them in others. Terry’s parents divorced when he was ten years old and Terry
described his father as unavailable to confide in and disinterested in involving himself
enough to protect Terry from his mother’s abuse.

Terry would describe how a seemingly trivial oversight in his completing of a nightly
chore would often evoke her attack. She might perceive him to have hastily loaded the
dishwasher after dinner and then scream at him for only caring about himself and
being completely ungrateful for how hard she works to care for him and his
sisters. Importantly, Terry’s mother did not consciously deliberate to determine that
Terry was ‘being selfish’ – rather, she knew he was selfish. His mother showed
complete certitude in her accusations and condemnations of his character. She was
right in a sense that defied challenge from anyone – including Terry. He had no choice
but to comply with her projection of him and experience himself as selfish and
inconsiderate. Doing so allowed him to go on being with his mother in an important
way. He would typically walk away from her tirades in tears and go up to his room
with feelings of panic and helplessness.

Features of pathological projective identification

The parent MUST be right

Terry’s mother’s verbal attacks on Terry illustrate several features of this psychological
process for both parties. To start with, Terry’s mother had to be right about her
accusations towards Terry. There is a lot at stake when the parent dislocates an internal
state into a child. The implication is that the parent could not psychologically survive to
know about this aspect of himself or herself. The intensity of shame, terror, and/or
despair would presumably be too great. The parent is convinced at a deep level that he
or she would have nobody to safely express these feelings to so that he or she could feel

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more regulated and able to be soothed. Instead the feelings must be ejected and found –
with absolute certainty in the communication – in the child. Terry’s mother could not
survive being wrong that her son was selfish in these moments. There is no set of verbal
counterarguments that can convince someone like Terry’s mother – in such moments –
otherwise.

Terry’s experience in these nightly attacks highlights the impact of his mother’s absolute
requirement that she be right about him. He recalled sensing that all he could do once
she grew furious at him was endure her hostility. He knew there was nothing he could
say to change her mind about him. It was as if his and her very sense of having a shared
reality depended upon him complying with her efforts to get him to identify with the
selfishness she could not stand in herself. Terry was hamstrung from being able to
protect himself from her because to deny her accusations meant to break apart the only
way available to exist with her as his mother and he as her son. That is the ‘or else’
quality that is imposed upon the recipient of the other’s projection. To not comply
obliterates the only form of connection that is available – something that must be
avoided at all costs by a child in relation to a parent.

Negation of the child’s subjectivity

Terry felt implicitly abandoned in the course of these exchanges. Part of the demand
that he think about himself the way she insisted he does was that anything he felt,
thought, or cared about was wholly disregarded by her. All that mattered was his
mother’s psychology and what she needed to stay intact in these moments. She did not
have the capacity to notice her own feelings and stay responsive to Terry. This led to a
chronic sense for Terry that relationships did not offer much for him – he very much saw
them as arrangements that took from him.

The impingeing quality of a parent’s projections

Pathological projective identification emits a call to the child that cannot go unheeded.
The child feels the weight of the parent’s desperation behind this tactic. The child’s need
for the parent sharpens his or her sensitivity to the parent’s psychological demands and
motivation to meet them. The very nature of projective identification involves one
person needing an unbearable state of mind to exist in someone else or a profound
breakdown could occur. There is a felt imperative to orient to and comply with what the
parent is looking to find in the child. When pathological projective identification is at
play, the parent will always find what he is looking for – and the child will help him do
so. The child assists in this process by heeding the call to be what the parent requires

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him to be. It is not experienced as a choice for the child but rather as the only way to
maintain a form of connection to the parent – something that feels absolutely necessary.

Terry experienced this pressure to attend to his mother’s projections as fear of what she
would do to him if he did not. He could not exactly name – at first – what he feared she
might do. Over time, we grew to understand that he felt the pressure to play along with
how she seemed to have to see him or something terrible would happen. Therapy
helped him understand that the ‘something terrible’ might be the psychological collapse
of his relationship to her and potentially her ability to remain intact if he did not identify
with her projection.

The artificiality of what is identified with

Terry and his therapist worked through the ways he simultaneously felt abandoned and
urgently called upon in relation to his mother. He had a vague strange sense of himself
as ‘bad’ or ‘selfish’ but even that felt somehow unreal. He knew that her insistence of
who he was felt ill-fitting at a core level. This is an important indicator that pathological
projective identification was operative with his mother. The ways he thought of himself
as bad and later defective had a hollow and subtly artificial sense to them. Although
Terry had great difficulty thinking of himself as anything other than selfish and
inconsiderate at the beginning of treatment, he knew that they never really rang true
and he was left with a sense of not feeling like he knew himself.

Identify with the projection or have and be no one

One of the most insidious aspects for a child caught in this arrangement with a parent is
how terrible the alternative of not identifying with the parent’s projections would be for
that child. A child looks to his parent for accurate reinforcement of who he is in the
world. A parent’s contingent and affirming responsiveness to the child’s expressions lead
to such reinforcement (Seligman, 2018). A lot happens in these arrangements. The
parent is saying “I am here and exist independently from you and you are there and exist
independently from me. I am curious about you and want to understand as much as you
will allow me about you.” The child now has the requisite space and relational context
needed to develop a sense of his authentic way of being with himself and with others.

In pathological projective identification, no such space exists between the parent and
child. The parent is saying, “I am here and terrified. No, wait the problem is over there in
you. You are terrible. Why are you so terrible?”. The parent cannot regard the child as an
independent other person to be found out about. Instead the parent already knows who

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the child is – the receptacle of her projection – yet also has no clue. The child feels this.
He can either be known in a pseudo way as what his parent is coercing him to identify
with or he can feel completely unknown – and unknowable – to the parent. The latter
prospect is akin to a psychic annihilation for the child. To feel unknown by – and
unknowable to – a primary caregiver can mean that one does not really exist and that
the parent does not really exist. Such encounters yield a sense of unendurable
emptiness, void, terror, despair, and rage. As crushing and ill-fitting as it may feel to
identify with the parent’s projections, this alternative is likely worse.

Recovery from projective identification

There are two important aspects to recovering from this tactic of abuse. First, one must
find new relationships that are stable, consistent, respectful and affirming. Doing so
helps to stem the suffering from the implicit abandonment suffered by such children.
Second, one must find information within oneself and without that reflects who the
person actually is – not just what they were forced to identify with. Such children have
had to identify with a false – and negative – notion of who they are. It will be essential to
accrue experiences in relationships where they are received accurately.

*All references to clients are amalgamations of people, papers, books, life that do not directly
refer to any specific person.

References
Seligman, S. (2018). Relationships in development: Infancy, intersubjectivity, and
attachment. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Ch. 5 – What’s next? The

importance of self-care in your
recovery
Want to learn 7 tried and tested self-care strategies to accelerate your recovery from
being scapegoated by a narcissistic abuser? Be sure to sign up and watch my free
webinar by clicking here.

You will learn…

à How narcissistic abuse can interfere with taking care of yourself
à A 3-step model of recovery from narcissistic abuse for scapegoated survivors
à 7 strategies to develop a caring and generous relationship with yourself
à How to feel safer in acknowledging and promoting your self-worth
à How to develop patience with yourself
à How to use your breath to find the calm inside
à The importance of movement
à How to eat as an act of self-care
à How to cultivate your own self-respect

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