Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a mental health diagnosis. Only qualified mental health professionals can or should diagnose NPD. There are thorough and effective assessment tools that a professional can administer, that, combined with other qualitative measures, can make an accurate diagnosis possible. I am not a mental health professional. I’m a pastor. In writing about narcissism, it’s important to me …

Differentiation and Individuation are terms used to describe a developmental process everyone needs to go through in their path toward maturity. My (probably oversimplified) understanding of these terms is that in differentiation, I learn that I’m not a you; in individuation, I learn that I am a me. So these are related processes and ideas. They happen together and each affects …

I remember a particular phone call with a classic narcissist. His wife of many years had finally had enough and kicked him out of the house. He was about to lose everything. His marriage. His kids. His financial future. The very image he had worked to build was collapsing around him. He phoned me to rage and cry about what …

Narcissistic Parenting is especially toxic. A relationship by its very nature designed to be about the benefit of the child is used instead as a source of narcissistic supply by the parent. Let’s take a look at the various aspects of narcissism and how they affect the parent/child relationship. Identity The narcissist looks to others as a source of identity …

There are four keys that are critical for the health of any relationship. Narcissism is so toxic and destructive because it is a failure in all four of these areas. Here are the four: 1. I’m not needy. This is self-management. It’s an orientation toward life that assumes personal responsibility for my own choices and their consequences, my actions, thoughts, …

Who are you? Do you have value? Who gets to answer those questions? For a narcissist, other people are responsible to answer these questions. Narcissism is a commitment to gaining your sense of identity and worth from other people. But it’s not so much a conscious commitment; it’s your reality. It’s the way you assume life is. It’s what you see and …

“I’m in a relationship with a Narcissist. What do I do?” This is the most common question I’ve received since I started writing on the subject. In this post, I want to give the beginning of an answer. Of course some direction regarding what to do involves direction regarding what not to do. 1. Don’t become narcissistic yourself. This is a …

Narcissism is essentially a distortion in the human development process. People are designed to move from dependence (I am not self-managing) to independence (I am self-managing) to interdependence (two self-managing people in relationship). The healthy development of independence appropriate to each season of life is what positions us to cultivate healthy relationships. One of the key aspects of our development …

For years she has disappeared in the relationship. This is what has to be done to keep the peace. There are so many ways he knows to punish her into this reality. She feels invisible. Stuck. Voiceless. She has lost herself and wonders if she can ever “be” again. She reaches the point of no more and begins to speak. …

In a marriage it’s good to have some effective tools and strategies for resolving conflict when it arises. There’s a particular brand of conflict I have seen over and over again that’s better to avoid altogether. Rather than resolving it, just don’t have it to begin with. There are two components essential to all communication: 1) the message sent, and …