Healing Narcissistic Abuse by Walking the Path of Relational Spirituality
Why a more holistic approach to relational trauma recovery is desperately needed
In the past few weeks, I’ve had the usual number of clients calling to express their rightful anger and outrage about the men in their families, their spouses, their bosses and our culture in general. Even if the person is familiar with the mental health world and the concept of a personality disorder, the idea of waking up and seeing, perhaps for the first time, the imbalance of power, the lack of kindness and blatant disrespect is overwhelming. Up until now, the treatment for recovering from relational trauma and abuse has been through traditional psychotherapy. It is a wonderful place to start but is not the totality of the journey.
I have a great deal of empathy for these clients. I have not only professionally studied abuse and trauma (with the amazing people at the Institute of Violence, Abuse and Trauma in San Diego and at Tulane Medical School) with an emphasis of working with narcissists and difficult personalities — I, like so many other mental health professionals, have lived through it. From narcissistic and abusive family members, to being sexually harassed in graduate school, to dealing with a toxic dating environment to having my heart and life torn apart by someone with narcissistic tendencies — I…
