The Narcissist’s Spouse: Understanding Primary Supply

As a complex trauma therapist who specializes in treating trauma incurred through narcissistic abuse, I encounter many spouses desperate to escape from the perfidious torment of marriage to a malignant narcissist. Similarly, I work with adult children of mothers and fathers who embody malignant narcissistic traits or fit the diagnostic criteria for NPD. Narcissistic Personality […]

Read More

Love After Narcissistic Abuse: Sharing Real Intimacy After Being The Supply

My experience as a survivor and a therapist specializing in treating both complex trauma and narcissistic abuse syndrome has shown me that the violent personal assault inflicted by NPD abuse causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in victims, irrespective of whether they present with a prior history of complex trauma. Accordingly, having somehow managed to keep oneself glued […]

Read More

Parental Alienation: What Is It and How Do You Cope?

After close to three decades and without any planning, I chose to escape a narcissistically abusive marriage. Wow! I wished I would have read Tracy A. Malone’s book, “Divorcing Your Narcissist: You Can’t Make This Shit Up!” because then I would have learned from her extensive research and experience about the “covert tricks they pull” […]

Read More

What Is a Trauma Bond?

A trauma bond is an attachment to an abuser in a relationship with a cyclical pattern of abuse. Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., coined the term in 1997. He defined it as an adaptive, dysfunctional attachment occurring in the presence of danger, shame, or exploitation in order to survive. The bond is created due to a power […]

Read More