trying to master a difficult art form, in my case improvised music, has repeatedly taught me to be more objective about my own playing. this is because you cant fake it. i think this helps me see myself as a regular person instead of a special person easier, since this perspective can be transferred to other settings.
Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
111–120 of 404 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#112I'm not surprised that the literature on narcissism isn't helping you, because looking for books to help overcome your narcissism is the last thing a real narcissist would do. In their world view, the problem is always everyone else. It sounds more like you're growing, and learning something about how your ego operates, which is a good sign. The question is how to grow further in this direction. In my life, the thing…
I went to my therapist once and said "I have terrible news, according to this book on narcissism, 8 of the 13 symptoms apply. I'm totally one. How can I fix it? Is it fixable?" And she smiled and said..."a real narcissist would never ask that."
Yeah, but it's not a binary thing, it's a continuum. It's perfectly possible for someone like you, the OP, myself, others reading this to have strong narcissistic tendencies but to be self-aware enough to want to change and not be a complete malignant narcissist, the kind who destroy lives and end up on true crime podcasts.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#113Seeing 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…
A therapist is trained to spot things you miss.
It's like asking, "what does a junior engineer get out of being mentored by a senior engineer that they couldn't just figure out by coding or reading blogs?" A therapist brings things like context, breadth of knowledge, and honesty. I felt like the therapist wasn't incentivized to sugar coat things to spare my feelings, something close friends and family might do.
I am not sure about seeing one for 5 years, though. The point of a therapist is to make themselves unnecessary, in my opinion - they're supposed to give you the tools needed to do exactly what you're saying people should do - understand their behavior and change it.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#114Seeing 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…
I'm going to counter the "therapists are great" theme that I'm seeing here. I think they're a waste of money. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a great tool. With practise and courage you can use it to reform the way you think. It won't fix something like schizophrenia but it might be useful for a narcissist who wants to change.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#115There'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?
#116I'm not entirely convinced narcissism is something that has to be fixed.
There are some aspects to it that are of course destructive as you mentioned (not enjoying listening to other people, and taking things to personally). Fixing these things I think comes down to enjoying the people you spend time with, and a radical belief that things will work out no matter what happens.
But there are other aspects of narcissism that really lend themselves well to success. Overconfidence/inflated egos are some of the only ways that you can take on really big challenges ahead of you. (See Sam Altman's blog post on this - https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful, and PG's tweet - https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1217724728644861953)
I'd love to hear what other people think :)
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#117Seeing 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 with, but also suspect a lot of therapists are neither of those things?
CBT and growth mindset seems helpful, what's the process to actually find someone successfully? How many people actually are doing therapy vs. just recommending other people do it? It seems a lot more people are recommending it than actually doing it themselves (which would explain the vague advice).
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#118Seeing 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…
I'm going to counter the "therapists are great" theme that I'm seeing here. I think they're a waste of money. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a great tool. With practise and courage you can use it to reform the way you think. It won't fix something like schizophrenia but it might be useful for a narcissist who wants to change.
Plenty of clinical psychologists use CBT in practice.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#119Seeing 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…
I'm going to counter the "therapists are great" theme that I'm seeing here. I think they're a waste of money. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a great tool. With practise and courage you can use it to reform the way you think. It won't fix something like schizophrenia but it might be useful for a narcissist who wants to change.
> It won't fix something like schizophrenia
Your comment is terribly unhelpful. Therapy isn't about "fixing" someone, but to help individuals with issues that negatively affect their life find opportunities to manage those issues. CBT is not something you can start doing by yourself without an external catalyst.
I have ADHD, OCD, and bipolar II along with recurring bouts of PTSD from a terribly traumatic childhood. Without therapy, I would have considerable more issues integrating with my peers and navigating the emotional turmoil that is the battlefield of my brain. Therapy has assisted me in shifting my perspective and enabling me to live my best life despite the demons that seem to constantly want to drag me down.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#120I 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 opportunities and make them look great.
Our improv instructor keeps on giving us exercises where if we take the lead, we're losing. I can already feel myself becoming better at paying attention to what other people are doing. One of the books we are reading for the class even makes the case that improv can help people become better at remembering each other's names.
I have no idea if improv classes are a useful way of combating narcissism, but maybe they could help?