Just coming back from Los Angeles and Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy training, I am mulling over what I learned. One of the things Real specializes in is treating couples where one person is a narcissist. Every therapist knows how hard it is to work with individuals with a personality disorder, and the narcissist is no exception. Unfortunately for us and the world, they exist in plentiful supply. Imagine: A person who thinks he* knows more than anyone and looks at others in a “looking-down-at-them and I-know-better-than-you” position, with a steel-reinforced defense mechanism and/or boundary-less offender. Add to that a strong resistance to change and learning new things and ideas … if it sounds like it would be difficult to help them, you’d be right.

I feel I must say that for couple’s therapy to be truly successful, we need each person to enter the arena with a humble heart – open to admitting what they may be doing wrong, seeing the other person’s perspective, and eager to make things right. Narcissists simply cannot do that, and most often when the therapist hits resistance from them and their steel defense mechanism, (and they will!), the narcissist will refuse to return to therapy. Heaven forbid that their sensibilities get offended. They often refuse to return to the therapy, with while telling their spouse later that the therapist was a “quack” or “idiot.”

So how to break the code and get the narcissist to play ball in the therapy arena? It involves first, educating them about the details of what their personality really says about them – never using the word narcissist unless you really think it would make a positive difference; that they have come out of childhood with a very damaged ego system, that at the bottom of it is a belief that they aren’t good enough, and the puffed up arrogance that has resulted is really a false self-created long ago to get them through life. The problem with that is …

1. They aren’t being genuine and authentic, and it takes a lot of energy to keep supporting a false self by putting on an act every day.
2. It is not relational. People simply cannot have a healthy relationship with a person who looks down at others and either has an iron wall up or has no boundaries at all.
3. The false self, defensive walls or boundary-less behavior are a result of toxic shame taken on in childhood. Toxic shame is the underlying belief that a person is defective or not good enough.

So after educating them about their personality traits and how those traits are not conducive to relationships, we introduce a strategy of joining with them through a little dose of the truth: “How you are behaving is not a good thing … is this who you really want to be?” “Do you really want to be this person to your children?”

We know that underneath all the puffed-up-ness is a real human being that is functional and able to give and take and love deeply. The arrogance and defenses or boundary-less behavior can be controlled because we have evidence that in some circumstances, say in the workplace or with friends, he does control himself and act reasonably. We simply have to get him to access his better, more kind and gentler self, the one that Pia Mellody-trained therapists call “The Functional Adult,” and the Christian religion refers to as the Holy Spirit. We want him to use it instead of his ugly side. If he succeeds he has a chance at having healthy relationships with the people he loves the most.

Another important part of this is to show couples the Relationship Grid graphic. This way they will know absolutely that their stance is not conducive to having a healthy relationship, creating a visual that makes it impossible to deny that a person is not functional enough to be relational. If you’re personality falls into the green area, something isn’t working.

Here it is:

The Relationship Grid graphic shows us that dysfunctional people’s self-esteem is either openly grandiose or shame-filled, meaning their behavior exhibits they think they are better than others, or less than others; and emotionally and boundary-wise they either hide behind a wall (walled-off) or have endless need for their partner’s connection (boundary-less). Find out which combination you and your partner have, and you’ll find out why your relationship doesn’t work.

It is probably important to understand that in the center of the grid is the healthy person, who has neither walls nor endless needs and is available and able to connect and be close or to give space, and neither thinks they are better or less than anyone else. These people have a basic respect and love for themselves and other human beings.

A narcissistic person is going to be on the grandiose end of the spectrum, and they will either be walled off or boundary-less. Show them this and there will no doubt that their stance will not work within a romantic relationship. Of course, if the partner is a one-down person and walled off or boundary-less, we will need to work on them to have healthy self-esteem, to strengthen their spine when it comes to dealing with their “I know best” partner, and to exhibit moderation in their need for connection.

* Narcissists come in both genders, of course. I use the pronoun he here for ease of communication.

The best therapists are insatiable seekers of learning and growth, meaning that whatever our interests are, we learn all we can, continue to be curious and add new strategies and skills. Why? So we can have as many tools in our tool belt as possible to help our clients. In session I may suggest or tell you lots of things I think may help, but we never know what one thing is going to be the thing that motivates you to change.

Clients tell me all the time, “I will never forget that one thing you told me … it really made a huge difference.”

So in search of more of those types of things, I went to Los Angeles to take part in one of a three-part training with Terry Real, the creator of Relational Life Therapy. He’s also the author of the book, “The New Rules of Marriage.” I had heard about him through Pia Mellody’s* codependency training circles and wanted to go hear his take on treating codependents in relationships.

I loved the two days with Terry, as his model is so heavily influenced by Pia’s simple yet powerful model of dysfunction — something I draw on my white board almost every day for individuals and couples so they might start their recovery instantly. It is truly a model that has transformed my practice.

One thing he taught us to look for are: A couple’s stance, stance, dance. The math equation for that is: his stance + her stance = their relationship dance. Our first night’s homework involved figuring out a stance, stance, dance in one of our present or previous relationships. You complete the math by filling in the blanks of, “The more he _____ the more she ______ and the more he ______ . Then of course, the pattern goes on and on.

In my own case, I came up with, “The more she pushes him to buy into her ideas and dreams the more he practically defends to maintain the status quo and the more he feels she has no regard for what it takes and the consequences of fulfilling those ideas and dreams.

Once I worked out the stance, stance, dance in a relationship I have had, the more I could see that I pushed my partner to do the next big thing, like build on to our house, or plant a huge garden, all while he felt that I didn’t care about how hard he had to work to provide it. The truth is, I had ideas and dreams, but I was very flexible about not being able to have them, and I left it to him to tell me whether the ideas and dreams were realistic or attainable. He wrongly thought I didn’t care about just piling on one financial or labor intensive burden after another. Of course I cared, and I never wanted him to feel pressure or strain about my dreams and ideas – after all, they’re just ideas, not the mandates he took them as.

So, wow. Figuring out your stance, stance, dance is a really powerful exercise! It helped me sort out a situation that I had only thought about for a few seconds here and there in the past. I totally saw where we were misunderstanding one another needlessly and doing damage to our relationship.

So how to do it is to look at the areas in your relationship where there is tension. I knew that my wanting to add on to our house had made my primary bread-winner partner nervous. (Years ago I was a stay-at-home-mom). I had dreams and ideas, and he immediately resisted with negative responses. That was the pattern. The end result is that he thought I didn’t care about our finances, and I thought he was not open to hearing my dreams and close-minded. Learning this would have provided an opportunity for communication and correction of understanding … I can have ideas, he just needs to tell me if they’re possible. If they aren’t, no harm done.

There are so many tools that therapists have to get to the bottom of what is going on with a couple. I realize that some people think all we do in the therapy room is just talk, but there is so much more to it, and as a therapist it takes years to be able to do the work in a powerful and effective way that makes a life-changing difference in people’s lives. I am always looking for ways to do it better.

*Pia Mellody created the term codependency and developed a treatment for it at The Meadows Rehabilitation Center in Wickenburg, Arizona. This is the same center where Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps recently spent time to go into recover from substance abuse issues. Mellody wrote the book, “Facing Codependence,” The Intimacy Factor,” and “Facing Love Addiction. I have completed her 3-part training and became part of a worldwide group of therapists who have also completed the training known as the Healing Trauma Network.

by Becky Whetstone, Ph.D.

I am a Marriage & Family Therapist who specializes in helping people through the darkest days of their relationships, and I’m very passionate about it. I think that’s because I’ve been married four times and have faced many of the marital scenarios my clients face.

Having been married four times is not something I hide, but I don’t I openly advertise it either. That’s only because of the negative meaning so many people make up about it. Though we’ve come a long way since I grew up in southern Arkansas in the 1960s when divorced people were considered crazy and/or trashy, people still harshly judge those of us who have been divorced several times. In fact, many of my clients who are in a second or third marriage (or more!) and are miserable feel they should just white knuckle it rather than chalk up another divorce on their life’s resume. They just don’t want to bear the negative scrutiny; never mind the shame they’ll heap upon themselves.

The greatest thing that has come from my marital experiences is that I am married now to husband four and have the opportunity to get it right in a loving and mutually respectful relationship. I am thankful that my husband of three years – a gentle, intelligent and kind man – did not write me off six years ago when we met due to my red-flag-filled marital history. Instead, he sensed my genuineness and chose to experience me first-hand, over time, so he could make his own conclusions.

He says he was also encouraged by the fact that I was single quite a long while after my third marriage – almost 10 years. During those years I had not had one significant romantic relationship and had spent the time raising my two children (from marriage number two) and attending graduate school to become a marriage therapist. He was aware that I had been determined to figure out what what happened and spent enormous time and effort learning what I could about myself and the failed marriages so I could stop the pattern.

My marriage history makes me a better marriage therapist. I have a great deal of empathy for my clients and all they go through in a marriage that’s not working. I can report from painful experience what getting divorced feels like, how it plays out over the years, how children and extended family are affected and react, the loneliness, what it’s like to be a single mom, to date (awful), and how scary it can be to re-enter school and the workplace after many years.

I found divorce to be an agonizing experience containing numerous unforeseen after effects, and this flavors my strong bias to save marriages that can be saved. At the same time I know that if one or both people aren’t willing to work and change a situation that is tearing each other down, it is often an act of courage to walk away.

For some reason, my clients seem to get comfort from the fact that I have had almost every marriage experience one could imagine, and I share with them the many ignorant and naive choices and decisions I’ve made in my 57 years. I think they find hope in the fact that yes, I have been blind, but now I see and thrive in a most positive way.

The reason I thrive is that I finally grew up and faced what I was doing to create the relational messes I got myself in, which is a crucial step in turning your life around. When I faced the things I didn’t like about myself, I was able to do something about it. The most painful truths I had to acknowledge were:

•  I was dependent financially on others. Until my 40’s, I had never wholly supported myself financially. I always had relied on my dad or husbands or some windfall to supplement me so I could enjoy the upper middle class life I longed for.
•  I desired to be near power and ambition.  Like moth to flame, I was attracted to highly successful, powerful, ambitious men who basked in the spotlight and boy did I love tagging along. This was something learned in childhood from my family who gave standing ovations when anyone hobnobbed with the local rich and powerful. The problem is that this type of man is usually more interested in their success than anything else.
• I could not be alone. In my early adult years, I was literally terrified to spend a night alone in a house, so I would get myself in relationships to avoid that, and when it became apparent to me that the relationship wasn’t working or fixable, I wouldn’t do anything about it until I found someone else to slip in their slot.
• I wasn’t making something of myself because of shame. I ridiculously thought I wasn’t smart enough to excel in the fields I was interested in, so I didn’t pursue what I might have if I had believed I could. Instead, I married men who had what I didn’t and rode along on their back.

Once I realized what I was doing, it was a short walk to conclude that I needed to:

1. Do whatever it took to become financially independent doing what I love. This meant facing my shame about not being smart enough to succeed in graduate school and start the process to become a therapist. My new healthy thought was: “You are going to do whatever it takes to get into grad school and to pass the classes. If you fail, at least you’ll know you tried and we’ll figure out something else.” Once I knocked out the prerequisites and got into school I loved it and excelled. Now I had proof that I wasn’t as dumb as I thought. The year I graduated (2006) I was able to support myself and my children financially for the first time.

2. Learn to be alone at night in my house by being alone at night in my house. After three weeks of doing this, my fear went away and I was fine –  not only fine, but I learned to enjoy it.

3. If success and ambition was important to me, I had to get it for myself, but as I got healthier I found I didn’t require it anymore, so I adjusted my value system to finding a simpler life with people who have integrity, are positive-minded and kind, and who really care about me, and me about them.

Each one of my marriages contained an important life lesson that I needed to learn so that I could become the person who is able to passionately help her clients in their own life and marriage struggles. I m thankful for the wisdom and compassion gained, and the peace and contentment that came from the journey.

<em>Becky Whetstone, Ph.D. is The Marriage Crisis Manager: http://www.marriagecrisismanager.com
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