Can Narcissists Change? | IGOR WEINBERG

The vase thing in Japan is called kintsugi for anyone curious.

I can honestly say i believe i was a narcissist but at the age if 30 i had my first child a daughter and she is 2 years old now i have completely changed without a doubt something chsnged i put somenody elses happiness an well being before mine for the first time in my life. An it wasnt just towards my daughter i became honest in all aspects of my life including with myself. I stopped lieng in my relationships an i didnt even realize until recently the changes i went through until looking into narcissistic behaviors trying to understand because of someone else in my lfie and then i realized that use to be me...ppl often tell me lately how much ive changed an im so glad and grateful im truly not that person anymore.

Thumbs up for saying narcissists can change. Too many channels claiming it's impossible.

in my humble experience, only deep suffering / trauma aka deep intense emotional discomfort (funnily enough exactly what created peoples personality disorders to appear) can and will cause sustainable change in people with NPD.

I need to be a great person, but I can see that I cant be. I need to survive, which means at minimum to be liked. The safest most secure way to be liked is to be a nice person, or act kindly to people. I have no idea how to do that, it doesn't occur naturally to me at all. I hope I can learn though. Even if I cant be a good person, I want to be better, so I can find peace, and not hate myself like this

Beautiful! Thank you so much for helping people to feel more hopeful.

I’m thinking that psychedelic therapy might help re-reconnect narcissists back to their souls so they can be human again.

A friend of mine who's a semi retired addiction therapist remarked once there may be a recovery ego, I gather from the context that has to do with being admired for the work in that community. Although there's talk about 'right sized' in those circles I suppose it can be meaningful even if it might involve some kind of inflation.

I am self diagnosed and I think I do qualify for NPD diagnosis of vulnerable narcissism not malignant narcissism, I have an avoidant personality disorder too. I never in my life abused and always had empathy, my way with dealing with grandiosity and this deep urge for narcissistic supply is praying. When ever I feel superior or inferior I pray repetitively that God is the greatest and God decides who is superior and who is inferior not me or If I need praise, I pray All praise belongs to God. Doing this I can feel my brain changing if I do it for long enough like 10 minutes the need for superiority and need for admiration disappears. Do some narcissists never abuse, it can’t be just me?!

It seems like people sometimes conflate NPD with sociopathy... I don't really know better, but I wonder if part of the reason it's difficult to help people with NPD is because we (in the general population and the pop psy crowd) don't consider that the experience extends beyond the most extreme expressions of it.

Just a comment for the algorithm! Thank you for this upload

Great Info thanks

I mean honestly, I feel thst every second person, I meet is a narcissist... If they can't change.. Uhweee then there's no hope for humanity

What is meant specifically by ״functional” in this context?

I wish there was a way to fully intergrate a sense of self for NPD

Hi. Please answer and help. Do you think that emotional stability can be achieved through psychotherapy or it just helps to deal with the symptoms? Is dbt the best? Thanks a lot. p.s. I didn't see that there was a video about narcsisist

When I was in my early twenties, I slowly began to notice that I showed some traits of narcissism (it was not easy to recognize at first because it was not "overt" as I was socially anxious and I'm also an introvert). It was a defense mechanism that I had developed during severe abuse (physical, verbal, emotional and financial) from my mom. My father was largely absent. My mom used to devalue me so much that I developed a narcissist way of thinking in an attempt to protect my self-worth (I think it was life-saving at that time, it helped me to bear the verbal abuse even though I'm still traumatized by the physical abuse and the death threats from my mom), I thought secretly "No, I will be a great person, I have a very good potential to become someone well-known and many people will notice my worth even if you don't". I wanted to become an actress because of that, I was not realistic in my situation. My mom showed traits of the histrionic personality disorder and there was a certain level of narcissism as well. My mom often put in my sister's head and mine that, as her children, we were above the other children, particularly the poorer ones at school, which is strange because we were in the lower class ourselves (while devaluing us a lot the other times), and I feel that it was also one of the reasons why I developed a narcissist way of thinking. I also showed signs of a sense of entilement that I noticed for the first time when I went abroad for a week to practice English, I was upset towards my roomate (who was 22) because I overslept and she didn't wake me up before we had to go to the language school. I shouldn't have been upset towards her, she was not my mom, I was 18 and waking up on time was my responsability. The look she gave me without saying anything when I asked her in an angry tone of voice "Why didn't you wake me up?" (as soon as I woke up, without even saying to her "Good morning") put me right back in my place (we got along very well the whole time, maybe this is why her disapproving look made a difference because I valued our budding friendship). I started to consciously make the effort to think and act more humbly and it has now become natural. I also noticed after a working experience that I could be defensive before and I worked a lot on that as well (by learning about efficient ways to communicate, assertiveness and taking the time to pause before replying if an answer is necessary in a particular situation), it took time to improve my behavior. Being open to the feedback from several (mentally healthy) people in your life is important as well as developing self-awareness (one of the ways I have used is to read on psychology websites what is a toxic behavior and to analyse my interactions with people, even though it hurts when we realize that we sometimes act in a poor way, being ok with the sentence "I don't know" too as I don't need to give an opinion on a topic I'm not knowledgeable enough). It's so strange when the ego is no longer something important, truly thinking that I'm not better or worse than anyone else is actually liberating because I put less pressure on myself, even though that realization was depressing at first. What also helped me a lot was my late uncle who gave me psychology books when I suffered from eating disorders and from the difficult relationship with my late mom (he didn't know the details of the abuse that I kept private), it was his wonderful way to help me and I have kept learning more and more about psychology thanks to him. I made huge improvements compared to my previous behavior but I'm aware that it is a life-long process as I have to watch myself regularly not to fall back into narcissistic tendencies in case they reappear (same thing for my eating disorders tendencies), knowing that I didn't have the healthiest upbringing to say the least, without falling into an unhealthy self-centered approach where I would take all my time to "perfect" my behavior, accepting some of my flaws that don't harm anyone or myself and being curious to learn about other people is important to avoid that.

Speaking from the literature is pretty damn boring. I'd rather hear narcissists talk about their experiences performing therapy.

wondering if regressive therapy might work. I mean, if the hypnosis could take the narcs back to when the trauma started and heal the wound...Any opinion abt it?

I don’t think so. Psychopathic traits are more severe than a narcissist. But know what you deal with. Psychopaths are narcissists as well but slightly more gravely dangerous. But the traits are astonishing to say the least.