Last I heard the main barrier to recovery was believed to be that people with NPD very rarely seek and stick with treatments. Quick search isn’t really showing me evidence in either direction, but a lot of reputable sources such as Harvard, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Mayo Clinic all saying therapy can help. Also the similarities with BPD leave me suspicious that DBT may help. But this may just be me wishing the narcissist in my life were to have sought help.
Yeah NPD and BPD are linked and BPD are notoriously hard to treat. One day they will just proclaim they are completely mentally well and stop taking all their meds. Once that happens, the only way I have seen to get them back onto meds and into therapy is some complete breakdown of their life… Which almost always inevitably happens, although it can take years for things to spiral.
Yeah, unfortunately I’ve been on the receiving end of that one too. But I’ve also known people who seemed to have dealt with it long term. What I notice in them is an eternal vigilance of a similar sort to addicts who stay permanently clean. They understand that the easiest and safest place to stop their destructive patterns is when it’s about to start.
That said, I wasn’t aware of medication being used for any personality disorder, I was under the impression that the only effective treatment was dbt.
Last I heard the main barrier to recovery was believed to be that people with NPD very rarely seek and stick with treatments. Quick search isn’t really showing me evidence in either direction, but a lot of reputable sources such as Harvard, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Mayo Clinic all saying therapy can help. Also the similarities with BPD leave me suspicious that DBT may help. But this may just be me wishing the narcissist in my life were to have sought help.
Yeah NPD and BPD are linked and BPD are notoriously hard to treat. One day they will just proclaim they are completely mentally well and stop taking all their meds. Once that happens, the only way I have seen to get them back onto meds and into therapy is some complete breakdown of their life… Which almost always inevitably happens, although it can take years for things to spiral.
Yeah, unfortunately I’ve been on the receiving end of that one too. But I’ve also known people who seemed to have dealt with it long term. What I notice in them is an eternal vigilance of a similar sort to addicts who stay permanently clean. They understand that the easiest and safest place to stop their destructive patterns is when it’s about to start.
That said, I wasn’t aware of medication being used for any personality disorder, I was under the impression that the only effective treatment was dbt.