The books of Dale Carnegie are fun to read, can help develop better habits, and are widely available.
Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
151–160 of 404 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#152Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#153I wonder if improv classes might help? I've been taking improv recently and I've found it to be extremely interesting from the POV of learning to pay more attention to other people. The core to learning improv is learning how NOT to be the center of attention. Everything is about supporting your team-mates: you have to pay extremely close attention to what they are doing and look for ways to give them further opportu…
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#154Seeing a therapist might be infinitely better than reading a book, and not just for narcissism. We're all broken in our own wonderful and unique ways. I've been seeing a therapist for 5 years now, and the positive impact this has had in my life and on my general self-awareness can't be overstated. As engineers and tech people we have one tool that has proven incredible useful in our careers: our brilliant rational mi…
People say this a lot, but it never seems very actionable. How do you do find someone good that you trust? How do you find someone worth the time? The couple of times I've tried to find someone you end up making a lot of unreturned phone calls. Maybe I have an unfairly negative impression of therapists - I both think that it's incredibly valuable to introspect and have someone smart and thoughtful to work things out…
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#155That said, they basically told me that if you're worried about being a narcissist or trying to change it then you probably aren't a candidate for NPD diagnosis. Simply put people with NPD don't even consider that they might be wrong or flawed.
That doesn't mean you don't have something to fix, but it's worth seeing a professional.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#156Perhaps the closest opposite to narcissism is humility. One way to really experience humility is to inject yourself into something truly foreign where money is an insufficient remedy. I don't know what that humbling experience will be for you. For me it was living in Afghanistan for 2 years, of which one of those years I traveled frequently and spoke with many people there. It doesn't matter how much money you make a…
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#157There's a few psychotherapy podcasts with episodes on narcissism. It's rare for malignant narcissists themselves to seek out therapy to help themselves so most resources are organized with how to deal with the narcissists in your life. But you should read them because if you can empathize with the other side and reflect on yourself, that would bring down your narcissistic tendencies. In general you should practice em…
Can you name any of those psychotherapy podcasts? Would love to know.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#158I wonder if improv classes might help? I've been taking improv recently and I've found it to be extremely interesting from the POV of learning to pay more attention to other people. The core to learning improv is learning how NOT to be the center of attention. Everything is about supporting your team-mates: you have to pay extremely close attention to what they are doing and look for ways to give them further opportu…
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#159Seeing a therapist might be infinitely better than reading a book, and not just for narcissism. We're all broken in our own wonderful and unique ways. I've been seeing a therapist for 5 years now, and the positive impact this has had in my life and on my general self-awareness can't be overstated. As engineers and tech people we have one tool that has proven incredible useful in our careers: our brilliant rational mi…
Honest question, really trying hard not to word it in a standoffish way: what do you get out of a therapist that can't be obtained from thought or general conversation outside of therapy? I don't think a "brilliant rational mind" is a prerequisite for coming to the conclusion that you're spending money to lock someone in conversation with you - someone that would not associate with you otherwise. To me, the relations…
Psychologists are experts in defusing such resistance and helping us work with that unconscious content, content that most people probably aren't very skilled in helping with.