Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed
Also known as Disarming the Narcissist, Disarming the Narcissist, Third Edition
Wendy Behary's schema-therapy-based guide to dealing with a narcissist in your life
At a glance
What it argues
Understanding makes it manageable
Key ideas
Avoid the traps, Set limits, Empathic confrontation …
See all 4Read next
Schema Therapy: A Practitioner's Guide, Schema therapy
See all 2Connections
Wendy Behary, Schema therapy and 3 others
See all 5
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Ignoring the narcissists in your life is rarely practical, so you need a way to communicate with them.
- The book is a step-by-step communication guide based on understanding the narcissist's psychological makeup.
- It teaches readers to step out of the narcissist's traps and power struggles, set limits, and know when to draw the line.
- The third edition adds shame, hypersexuality and infidelity, divorce, and the impact on children.
Why it matters
- For anyone living, working or co-parenting with a narcissistic person, and for therapists treating narcissism.
- Behary co-directs the Schema Therapy Institutes with Jeffrey Young, who wrote the foreword.
Key facts
- Author
- Wendy T. Behary; foreword by Jeffrey Young, preface by Daniel J. Siegel1
- Published
- March 2008 (1st ed.)2
- Third edition
- October 20211
- Later edition
- 2013 (New Harbinger, 224 pages)3
- Publisher
- New Harbinger Publications1
- Pages
- 240 (3rd ed.)1
- ISBN
- 9781684037704 (3rd ed. paperback)1
- Audience
- People dealing with a narcissist, and therapists1
What it argues
-
Understanding makes it manageable1
Narcissists' behavior makes sense once you understand their thinking, and so do your own habitual reactions (Judith Beck's endorsement).
Key ideas
-
Avoid the traps1
Separate yourself from the narcissist's traps and side-step power struggles and senseless arguments.
-
Set limits1
Learn to set limits and when to draw the line on unacceptable behavior.
-
Empathic confrontation1
A schema therapy tool the book uses, including when co-parenting with a narcissist (Susan Stiffelman's endorsement).
-
Your own needs1
Why you feel lonely and misunderstood in these relationships, and why you keep your needs tucked away (Randi Kreger's endorsement).
Read next
-
Schema Therapy: A Practitioner's Guide
Includes schema therapy's protocol for narcissistic personality disorder.
-
The approach behind Behary's method.
Connections
Written by
Related
Links
Sources
Last checked against its sources today
Is something on this page wrong or out of date? Tell us
The line under a date fills as time passes: empty when new, then one equal share each for a day, a week, a month and a year. For episodes and other items it is full at 2 years; for "last checked", at a year. A striped line means the date is known only to the month or year.