If you have been around a narcissist who might be a parent, partner, friend, or co-worker, you can see the destruction they leave in their path and the relationships they ruin. You wonder why they continue to behave this way and never seem to seek out treatment to get better, or at least improve the relationships around them. So why don’t narcissists go to therapy?
The simplest answer is the narcissist doesn’t think they need therapy. They live in a world in which they view themselves as superior, all-knowing, are entitled to special treatment, have a need for excessive admiration, and have an inflated sense of self-importance. The narcissist views themselves as flawless and there is nothing therapy would be able to provide them. They believe the issue is not with them but with everyone around them so why would they need to go to therapy to work on themselves?
While the simple answer is they don’t think they need therapy, the reason why they don’t go to therapy is a bit more detailed and at times complicated. There are several factors that contribute to why a narcissist won’t go to therapy, and these reasons are at the root of narcissism and their narcissistic personality traits.
First, the narcissist lacks empathy. Empathy is the ability to relate to and understand the feelings of someone else. If the narcissist lacks empathy, then they cannot understand how their actions affect someone else. While people do attend therapy to work on themselves, the driving factor for starting therapy is often because they understand that their actions affect others and they want to change this. If the narcissist lacks empathy and can’t understand how someone else might think or feel, then they don’t understand why they would need to change their behaviors because of how someone else might be affected.
Second, the narcissist cannot tolerate feelings of shame or criticism and cannot take blame for their actions. When they admit wrongdoing, it brings up hurt and negative feelings. They lack accountability and use blame-shifting in their actions. When they blame-shift, their fingers point at everyone else as the problem, and not them. If the narcissist already believes they are not the problem, and the issue is everyone around them, then they will find no benefit in attending therapy. In their mind, they don’t need to be in therapy when the issues lie with everyone else.
Third, therapy requires accountability, and as I just discussed, narcissists cannot take accountability for their actions. To take accountability requires vulnerability and vulnerability is something a narcissist will avoid at all costs. Vulnerability is an uncomfortable feeling for them that can lead to narcissistic injury, and then narcissistic rage. The narcissistic injury destroys their sense of superiority and grandiosity as their self-esteem and self-worth is being threatened. As a result, a narcissist will avoid placing themselves in situations which would open the door to possible vulnerability and accountability taking, such as therapy.
Lastly, they may have even tried therapy in the past, likely at the insistence of someone else, but found it wasn’t successful. They may not want to return to therapy again because of the lack of success with their prior experience. However, narcissists are difficult to treat due to their inability to look inwards and their desire to manipulate and control situations. While therapy can be successful for some people with narcissistic personality traits, it requires a lot of work from the narcissist to get to a place mentally where they can be vulnerable, open themselves up, and be willing to make changes in themselves because they understand how their actions affect others. These are big changes to ask of a narcissist and they may never be ready to make the changes, thus never presenting to therapy.
At Mindset Therapy we provide mental health services in Texas and Washington from trained professionals, via telepsychology, which allows you to attend the appointment from the location most convenient for you. Visit Mindset Therapy at https://www.mindsettherapyonline.com/ to learn more about the services offered and make an appointment. Also visit our YouTube page, Mindset Therapy, PLLC, for the Mental Health Minute series that provides quick pieces of information for common mental health issues.