When Your Therapist is the Narcissist! + Answering Your Fan Mail

What happens when a narcissistic therapist uses their professional training against you?

This week’s Fan Mail question comes from a listener in Seattle who writes: “I dated a narcissist who was also a licensed clinical social worker. Can you talk about the weaponization of therapeutic training by narcissists?”

In this episode, Dr. Kerry unpacks how narcissistic mental health professionals can use psychology to pathologize your emotions and silence your voice, how the imbalance of power could be weaponized against you.

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More About Dr. Kerry

Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D, a retired psychologist and author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism. Her blogs have been featured in Mamami, YourTango, Scary Mommy, and The Good Men Project. 

In Love You More, Dr. McAvoy gives an uncensored glimpse into her survival of narcissistic abuse, and her workbook, First Steps to Leaving a Narcissist, helps victims break free from the confusion common in abusive relationships. She hosts the Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse podcast and offers trauma-related advice on social media.

Transcript

Welcome to fan mail, a space where I answer your real questions about toxic relationships, narcissistic abuse, and the long road to healing. I got this question from a listener in Seattle, Washington, and she writes, I dated a narcissist who is also a licensed clinical social worker. I would love a chance to discuss the weaponization of therapeutic training by narcissists.

Thank you so much for this extremely difficult and provocative question. I wanna actually answer it from two different angles. I suspect that you're asking it as someone who's in a relationship, a personal relationship with someone who's also a clinician, and you're being abused by this individual and they're using their clinical experience and knowledge against you. So I'm gonna take that angle first. And then the second one though, I wanna talk about how to recognize when the clinician that you're working with, the therapist you're working with is behaving in an abusive and unethical manner. Because both are problems when you have a narcissist who has way too much power.

So let's talk about it from the first angle. When you're not the client, but you're still being controlled. What happens in these types of relationships is that the person who's narcissistic uses their knowledge of trauma and attachment and emotional wounds as leverage, and it creates this false hierarchy in the relationship that no longer makes it an equal partnership, but where they're the expert and you are the subject.

In what often happens with these types of relationships is that they pathologize your emotions. They'll use what you say against you, and then clinically analyze it as a way to distance themselves from them being a part of the interaction. Like they may say you're being reactive because you're abandonment wound, so you're just being reduced simply to a bunch of clinical symptoms.

They'll co-op the language of therapy and psychology or social work to shut you down. Like they'll say, stop being so dysregulated and it'll. Again, all as a guise to one, gaslight you and but also to invalidate you. They'll exploit the vulnerabilities that you've shared. Instead of talking about the here and now and what's happening in the dynamic of the relationship, they'll say, the reason you're doing this is because what happened between you and your dad, they made you feel invisible. That's what you're reenacting here. So they'll start to weaponize your past against you. They'll also use their credential as an authority in the moment of conflict. Like, Hey, I'm an expert in this. I know what I'm talking about 'cause I've studied this, and what it becomes as a way to sort of stonewall you or silence you in a passive aggressive manner. And they'll also use performative empathy or insight that really doesn't create a sense of attunement, but still leaves you feeling incredibly unsafe. This hurts because it obviously is not an equal partnership. As I said in the beginning, it uses power and dynamics of their education against you.

It really detracts from the experience of what you're having and makes it very difficult to have any kind of conflict resolution. And it just really creates this dynamic of power and equity where they are constantly the expert and you're always the underling. So definitely this is a very dangerous dynamic. So watch out when you experience this with someone who makes you feel like you are the student, or that you're constantly in therapy with them when they are not your therapist and their role is not to psychoanalyze you. But I also wanna jump over and talk about when you're in a relationship with a clinician, a therapist, whether it's a psychiatrist, a social worker, or a psychologist, and boundaries are being crossed.

Maybe even there's boundary violations. Therapists should never have a dual role with you. They cannot be both your romantic partner and your licensed clinician because that creates an inherent power inequity, and it's also a severe conflict of interest. Your needs should always be front and center in this relationship, and when somebody's in it and getting something out of it, that's not what's happening, and that no longer creates a safe environment for you. I want you to be aware that narcissists are very attracted to the field of clinical work, mental health work, because it gives them a chance to be in power and have an enormous say over another person's life. And they love that. They love to be in that kind of position. So watch out for someone who though weaponizes their psychological insight as a way to control gaslight or manipulate you. And I also want you to know that if there is some blurring of the lines around what consent is, you feeling like you didn't really consent to that, and they're pushing you into a direction that they're not listening to you, listening to your objections that's problematic or that they're breaching your right to confidentiality or even the trust in the room.

Really, really pay attention to that because. Just because they are so-called the expert, does not mean they actually know better than you. You are always in charge. You are always the consumer, and it should be always in your best interest. I wanna warn you how frequently this happens. There has been a statistic came out of Zur Institute that set up to 9.3% of the therapists admitted, they admitted to having sexual contact with clients. So if clinicians are admitting that they're doing that, can you imagine what the real number is? Also, I want you to know that the APA code of ethics directly forbids any sexual relationship with current and often with past clients as well, at least it strongly cautions against having relationships with former clients for at least two years or longer In some state, like for example, I know it's forever disallowed and it forever is seen as an, not only as an ethical violation, but it illegal act.

So here are some warning signs that tell you that there are inappropriate boundaries in your relationship with your therapist, if they start to use therapy language to silence you or pathologize you, or if they always present themselves as right because of their credential or experience. If they try to diagnose you in a casual or intimate setting, you may be experiencing a manipulation of power or training.

Also, be aware when they start to give therapy- like advice in personal conversations where they use confidential information from past sessions to win an argument with you or they're acting as if they're both your friend and your therapist or your lover and a therapist. When there's a, like a dual relationship, that's a blurring of professional and personal lines.

Also be aware that you're experiencing the same type of love bombing that you might experience in a pathological love relationship, where there's this excessive admiration and idealization of you followed by an emotional withdrawal or a lot of criticism, if there's a sense of them wanting to create an excessively dependent relationship with you, really want you to rely on them or contact them outside of the therapy office for advice, You may be experiencing someone who's trying to psychologically seduce you into a inappropriate relationship.

If they just do things like dismiss your concerns, like with phrases like you're projecting or if that's your trauma talking. If there's a breach in the relationship and they don't attempt to listen to you and really repair what happens, but rather flip it on you and blame you for it, then there may be a lack of accountability.

So I know this is just sort of a cursory look at this 'cause it, I could probably spend a whole podcast talking about this, but thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. Really be aware of this because this is a real risk. In my own situation, back when I was seeing clients. I was aware at least two to three clinicians who got in trouble for crossing these boundaries.

So this is a real concern that does actually happen. So thank you so much for this fantastic question.