How to Help your Narcissistic Partner to Heal | Dr. David Hawkins

Hello, I'm Dr. David Hawkins. I'm the Director of the Marriage Recovery Center and I'm here to talk to you again about, yeah, we're talking about narcissism some more. My goodness, there are just all kinds of notions floating around out there about narcissism and narcissists and NPD and so on and so forth and I guess I'm the only one around here that's saying something just a little bit different for you to consider. So, you know, I have so many phone calls that come in and say, you know what, I was told that if I'm married to someone who has NPD or if they have NPD traits, I should just run and get out and this video is titled, Helping Your Narcissist Heal. Yes, you can. And that has got to sound crazy when you are listening to some other experts and they know what they're talking about. It's good stuff. It really is. But I just want you to have another perspective. So, helping your narcissist heal, yes, you can, is something that I want you to think about. So, here's some, I've got five points that I want you to reflect on and just consider, okay? Weigh it against what you see happening and then you make a good informed decision, okay? Number one, diagnosing a man, or it could be a woman, but typically it's a man, diagnosing a man with NPD is of little value. You know, we throw out diagnoses all the time and it's not really that helpful. Does he have NPD? Does she have BPD? Does he have ADHD? Actually, that one can be particularly helpful. But what I'm really looking for here, folks, is, okay, does he have narcissistic traits? You've heard me talk about the spectrum. That's what I want you to think about, okay? How far up the spectrum is this man? So, diagnosing is really of little value. What's really of value is understanding what are the behaviors, what are his defenses, what are the behaviors and actions that he takes that break the connection to you? That's what I want to focus on. I want to name, label, identify behaviors. That is what's going to be effective. We want to have something that we really specifically target. So, consider, please just consider giving up the NPD diagnosis and looking at behavior. Secondly, along with the diagnosing phenomenon, we have all kinds of people, you may be one of them, who is focusing on narcissistic wounds, narcissistic supply. All of those psycho-diagnostic, psychoanalytic terms, they're really not helpful. It's just not going to help you to think about, okay, where's he getting his narcissistic supply? And if I push him away, will he just get his supply someplace else? And I've just not found that stuff to be helpful. So, I want you to consider letting go of that. Number three, solution-focused therapy. And actually, using some other tools out of some other backgrounds can be useful, okay? Tools that come out of working with BPD can be dialectical behavior therapy strategies, such as mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, all aspects of dialectical behavior therapy. Those actually are great tools, and they can be helpful in helping your narcissist heal. I want to move to number four. So, number three is solution-focused therapy, identifying the behaviors that disconnect him from effectively relating to you. That is really where the goal is. So, number four, boy, here's some where you're going to just go, Dr. Hawkins, I'm not sure about what you're saying, but I want you to think about this. So, what I have found phenomenally successful, phenomenally, I wish I could take two hours and tell you my stories. And if you want to hear them, you can call me and I'll tell you in brief some of the wonderful stories where, and here's number four, you, yes, helping your narcissist heal, you can. You must help him have a breakdown that leads to a breakthrough, universal phenomenon, universal, a breakdown that leads to a breakthrough. He's got to have a breakdown. And what I have found 100% of the time, not 96, not 98, but 100% of the time is when he has a breakdown, when you separate from him or let him know, I am ready to separate from you, make no mistake about it. Unless we do solution-focused therapy with someone very skilled, then I am ready to temporarily separate from you. Please don't think in black and white terms that you either have to stay and suffer or you have to divorce him. That's, that's a thinking error. That's black and white thinking. That's all or nothing thinking. You don't have to do that. So, number four is you must help him have a breakdown that leads to a breakthrough. And my last point, number five, is keep the heat on. Keep the heat on. Yeah. Okay. What does the heat on look like? I just worked with a man for three days. We had phenomenal success after he had been a very, very, very difficult, argumentative, argumentative, narcissistic man for many, many years. She finally got to the point where she separated from him. He did a personal intensive with me. We had remarkable success. I explored all of his defense mechanisms, the gaslighting, the shifting, the blame, rationalization, justification, all the reasons that he used not to process his emotions effectively. Yes, there's the solution, processing emotions effectively so that we can have good, healthy relationships. She separated. She kept the heat on and they are enjoying the best relationship they've had in many, many, many years. So, again, helping your narcissist heal, yes, you can, is really something I want you to consider. So, I want you to let go of the diagnosing. Not going to be helpful. I want you to let go of exploring his infancy, where he was wounded, how he was wounded. I want you to let go of the notion of he's not getting his narcissistic supply. He needs to get it. All of that is valuable. It is. It's got its place, but that's not what our focus is. Number three, our focus is solution-focused therapy, where we're looking at and we're using tools out of dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, some of those other tools that are very, very effective. Mindfulness, emotion management, looking at the defenses, the gaslighting, the blame shifting, all those different things that he uses not to feel his hurt and his pain. And I will help him do that, but he's only going to do that work in a combination of individual and couples counseling. And yes, doing that, setting that healing container up, that will help him do his work. And then you must bring the bottom to him. He's got to have a breakdown that leads to a breakthrough. There's no shortcuts to that. That must happen. Having the breakdown, he cares about you. He really does. He doesn't love you well, but he loves you. He cares about you and he needs you. So, we bring the breakdown that leads to the breakthrough. And then you must keep the heat on. There's got to be some tension there. He wants to get back with you, or maybe he's in home with you, but you're going to say, no, we really have to do this depth counseling. And we have to do it with someone who really knows what they're doing. One hour a week is not going to cut it. All right. So, we do this depth counseling and then we keep the heat on and we insist on change. Will he volunteer for it? You send him off for individual counseling? Not going to happen, folks. Not going to happen. So, we have to have a combination of hope. Look, you really can have a healthy, loving relationship. She really is going to be available to you, but only if you cross this bridge of change. I hope this makes sense because this is the kind of work I do and it's very, very effective. Okay. So, if you want to help your narcissist heal, yes, you can, then I hope you'll give me a call. Phone number is 360-490-5446. Read about my work at www.MarriageRecoveryCenter.com. I'm Dr. David Hawkins. I'm the director of Marriage Recovery Center and this is the kind of work I do. There's not many of us doing this kind of work. It's a specialty of mine and I'd love to help you walk this very, very, very winding road, but I will walk you through it and there's great, great success and great hope and great promise at the end of it. So, there really is hope. I know you're not hearing, but trust me, there is. Okay. Take care.