Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference-Focused Psychotherapy

by Diana Diamond, Frank E. Yeomans, Barry L. Stern

Filling a crucial gap in the clinical literature, this book provides a contemporary view of pathological narcissism and presents an innovative treatment approach. The preeminent authors explore the special challenges of treating patients--with narcissistic traits or narcissistic personality disorder--who retreat from reality into narcissistic grandiosity, thereby compromising their lives and relationships. Assessment procedures and therapeutic strategies have been adapted from transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP), a manualized, evidence-based treatment for borderline personality disorder. Rich case material illustrates how TFP-N enables the clinician to engage patients more deeply in therapy and help them overcome relationship and behavioral problems at different levels of severity. The volume integrates psychodynamic theory and research with findings from social cognition, attachment, and neurobiology.

Genres: Psychology, Psychoanalysis

470 pages, Hardcover

Published November 11, 2021

Reviews

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Otto Kernberg, and he is the major reason I got into psychology in the first place.

Narcissism has been the trendy pop psychology lingo for the past couple of years, it has something to do with the exhibitionism that social media enabled. Your dirty laundry fulfilled the voyeurism of empty heads on the internet. A true narcissist is hard to find, however traits of a person with NPD tendencies are everywhere. So even if you don't really need to deal with narcissists in real life, this beautifully written book is still useful.
Transference focused therapy is the old school psychoanalysis with a strong structure and empirical support. The therapist herself serves a neutral, healthy and authentic medium, to bounce back patient's distorted sense of self, with interpretations, the integration of the split off parts of self and object representations will gradually change the patient's personality to be more flexible.
NPD and BPD personalities usually go hand in hand, people who suffer from that exhaust their entire resource on the game of power and submission, the thrill on superiority and the rage on inferiority, in the end, it is an empty life.
I had a great deal of difficulties in understanding the feelings of emptiness, after reading this book, the idea of emptiness that NPD and BPDs feel is a result of deceived and manufactured reality, since the "bad" part of the self is split off onto others, the true identity is never complete.
Now, I only hope I can put these knowledge into practice, and I have the utmost gratitude for these most revered, intelligent, and compassionate minds in psychology.