Co-Narcissism:
How We Accommodate to Narcissistic
Parents
Alan Rappoport, Ph.D.
Abstract
This article introduces the term “conarcissism” to
refer to the way that people
Accommodate to narcissistic parents. I use the term
narcissism here to refer to people
with very
low self-esteem who attempt to control others’ views of them for defensive purposes. They are interpersonally rigid, easily
offended, self-absorbed, blaming, and
find it difficult to empathize with others. Conarcissistic people, as a result of their
attempts
to get along with their narcissistic parents, work hard to please others, defer
to
other’s
opinions, worry about how others think and feel about them, are often
depressed
or anxious, find it hard to know their own views and experience, and take the
blame for
interpersonal problems. They fear being considered selfish if they act
assertively.
A high proportion of psychotherapy patients are co-narcissistic.
The article discusses the co-narcissistic syndrome and
its treatment, and gives case
examples of patients who suffer from this problem.
Narcissism
Narcissism, a psychological state rooted in extremely
low self-esteem, is a common
syndrome among the parents of psychotherapy patients. Narcissistic people
are very
fearful of not being well regarded by others, and they therefore attempt to
control
others’ behavior and viewpoints in order to protect their self-esteem. The
underlying
dynamic of narcissism is a deep, usually unconscious, sense of oneself as
dangerously inadequate and vulnerable to blame and rejection. The common use of
the term refers to some of the ways people defend themselves against this
narcissistic dynamic: a concern with one’s own physical and social image, a
preoccupation with one’s own thoughts and feelings, and a sense of grandiosity. There are, however, many other behaviors that can
stem from
narcissistic concerns, such as immersion in one’s own
affairs to the exclusion of others,
an inability to empathize with other’s experience,
interpersonal rigidity, an
insistence that one’s opinions and values are “right,”
and a tendency to be easily offended
and take things personally. A high proportion of
people in psychotherapy have adapted to life with narcissistic people and, as a
result, have not been able to develop
healthy means of selfexpression and
self-directedness. I have coined the term “co-narcissism” for this
adaptation, which has the same relation to narcissism
as “co-alcoholic” has to
alcoholism and “co-dependent” has to dependency.
Co-alcoholics unconsciously
collaborate with
alcoholics, making excuses for them and not confronting them about
their
problem in an assertive way. The same is true of the co-dependent
person, who
makes
excuses for the other’s dependency and fills in for him or her as necessary. The
wife of an abusive husband who takes the blame for her
partner’s behavior is another
example of taking responsibility for someone else’s
problems. Both narcissism
and co-narcissism are adaptations that children have
made to cope with narcissistic
parenting figures. To the best of my knowledge, every
narcissistic and conarcissistic
person that I have encountered has had narcissistic
parents, and the parents
of their parents are reported to have been even
more highly narcissistic.
To the
extent that parents are narcissistic, they are controlling, blaming,
self-absorbed,
intolerant
of others’ views, unaware of their children’s needs and of the effects of their
behavior on
their children, and require that the children see them as the parents wish to
be seen. They may also demand certain behavior from their
children because they
see the children as extensions of themselves, and need
the children to represent them in
the world in ways that meet the parents’ emotional
needs. (For example, a
narcissistic father who was a lawyer demanded that his
son, who had always been
treated as the “favorite” in the family, enter the
legal profession as well. When the son
chose another career, the father rejected and
disparaged him.) These traits will lead
the
parent to be
very intrusive in some ways, and entirely neglectful in others. The
children are
punished if they do not respond adequately to the parents’ needs. This
punishment may take a variety of forms, including
physical abuse, angry outbursts,
blame, attempts to instill guilt, emotional
withdrawal, and criticism. Whatever form
it
takes, the
purpose of the punishment is to enforce compliance with the parents’
narcissistic
needs.
Co-Narcissism
Children of
narcissists tend to feel overly responsible for other people. They tend to
assume that others’ needs are similar to those of
their parents, and feel compelled to
meet those needs by responding in the required manner. They tend to be unaware
of their own
feelings, needs, and experience, and fade into the background in
relationships. Co-narcissistic
people are typically insecure because they have not been valued for themselves,
and have been valued by their parents only to the extent that they meet their
parents’ needs. They develop their
self concepts based on their parents’ treatment of them and therefore often
have highly inaccurate ideas about who they are. For example, they may fear that
they are inherently insensitive, selfish, defective,
fearful,
unloving, overly demanding, hard to satisfy, inhibited, and/or worthless.
People who
behave co-narcissistically share a number of the following traits: they tend to
have low self-esteem, work hard to please others, defer to others’ opinions,
focus on
others’
world views and are unaware of their own orientations, are often depressed or
anxious,
find it hard to know how they think and feel about a subject, doubt the
validity
of their own
views and opinions (especially when these conflict with others’ views), and
take the
blame for interpersonal problems. Often, the same person displays both
narcissistic
and co-narcissistic behaviors, depending on circumstances. A person who
was raised
by a narcissistic or a conarcissistic parent tends to assume that, in
any
interpersonal interaction, one person is narcissistic and the other
co-narcissistic, and often can play either part. Commonly, one parent was primarily narcissistic and
the
other parent primarily co-narcissistic, and so both
orientations have been modeled for the
child.
Both conditions are rooted in low self esteem. Both are ways of defending oneself
from fears
resulting from internalized criticisms and of coping with people who
evoke these
criticisms. Those who are primarily
co-narcissistic may behave
narcissistically when their self-esteem is threatened,
or when their partners take the
co-narcissistic role; people who primarily behave
narcissistically may act conarcissistically
when they fear being held responsible and punished for
another’s experience. Narcissistic
people blame others for their own problems. They tend not to seek
psychotherapy because they fear that the therapist
will see them as deficient and
therefore
are highly defensive in relation to therapists. They do not
feel free or safe
enough to
examine their own behavior, and
typically avoid the psychotherapy situation.
Co-narcissists, however, are ready to accept blame and responsibility for problems, and
are much more likely than narcissists to seek help
because they often consider themselves
to be the ones who need fixing. The image I often keep in mind, and share
with my
patients regarding narcissism, is that the narcissist needs to be in the
spotlight,
and the co-narcissist serves as the audience. The narcissist is on stage,
performing,
and needing attention, appreciation, support, praise, reassurance,
and
encouragement, and the co-narcissist’s role is to provide these things. Co-narcissists
are approved of and rewarded when they perform well in
their role, but, otherwise,
they are corrected and punished. One of the critical
aspects of the
interpersonal situation when one person is either
narcissistic or co-narcissistic is that it
is not, in an important sense, a relationship. I define a relationship as an interpersonal
interaction
in which each person is able to consider and act on his or her own needs,
experience,
and point of view, as well as being able to consider and respond to the
experience
of the other person. Both people are
important to each person. In a
narcissistic
encounter, there is, psychologically, only one person present.
The co-narcissist disappears for both people, and only
the narcissistic person’s experience
is important. Children
raised by narcissistic parents come to believe that all other people
are
narcissistic to some extent. As a result, they orient themselves around the
other
person in
their relationships, lose a clear sense of themselves, and cannot express
themselves
easily nor participate fully in their lives. All these adaptations are relatively
unconscious, so most co-narcissistic people are not
aware of the reasons for their
behavior. They may think of themselves as inhibited
and anxious by nature, lacking
what it takes to be assertive in life. Their tendency to be unexpressive of their
own
thoughts and
feelings and to support and encourage others’ needs creates something
of an
imbalance in their relationships, and other people may take more of the
interpersonal space for themselves as a result, thereby giving the impression
that they are, in fact, narcissists, as the conarcissist fears they are. Co-narcissistic people often fear they will be thought
of as selfish if they act more assertively. Usually, they learned to think
this way because one or both parents characterized
them as selfish if they did not
accommodate to the parent’s needs. I take patients’
concerns that they are selfish as an
indication of narcissism in the parents, because the
motivation of selfishness
predominates in the minds of narcissistic people. It
is a major component of their
defensive style, and it is therefore a motivation they
readily attribute to (or
project onto) others. There are three common types of
responses by children to the interpersonal problems presented to them by their
parents: identification, compliance, and rebellion (see
Gootnick, 1997, for a more thorough discussion of these phenomena). Identification
is the imitation of one or both parents, which may be required by parents
in
order for them to maintain a sense of connection with
the child. In regard to
narcissistic parents, the child must exhibit the same
qualities, values, feelings, and
behavior which the parent employs to defend his or her
self-esteem. For example,
a parent who is a bully may not only bully his child,
but may require that the child
become a bully as well. A parent whose selfesteem
depends on his or her academic
achievement may require that the child also be
academically oriented, and value (or
devalue) the child in relation to his or her
accomplishments in this area. Identification
is a response to the parent seeing the child as a
representative of himself or herself, and is
the price of connectedness with the parent. It results
in the child becoming narcissistic
herself. Compliance refers to the
co-narcissistic adaptation described earlier, wherein the
child becomes the approving audience sought by the
parent. The child is complying
with the parent’s needs by being the counterpart the
parent seeks. All three forms
of adaptation (identification, compliance, and
rebellion) can be seen as compliance in
a larger sense, since, in every case, the child
complies in some way with the needs of the
parent, and is defined by the parent. What defines
compliance in this sense is that the
child becomes the counterpart the parent needs from
moment to moment to help the
parent manage threats to his or her selfesteem. Rebellion
refers to the state of fighting to not
accept the dictates of the parent by behaving in
opposition to them. An example of this
behavior is that of an intelligent child who does
poorly in school in response to his
parent’s need that he be a high achiever. The critical
issue here is that the child is
unconsciously attempting to not submit to the parent’s
definition of him despite his
inner compulsion to comply with the parent’s needs. He
therefore acts in a selfdefeating
manner in order to try to maintain a sense of
independence. (If the pressure for
compliance had not been internalized, the child would
be free to be successful despite
the parent’s tendency to co-opt his achievements.)
Psychotherapy
Co-narcissistic people automatically and unconsciously
assume that everyone is
narcissistic. They have the same fear about the
therapist, but are able to enter treatment
because they also believe that the therapist may be
different. The most significant
aspect of co-narcissistic patients’ work in therapy
consists of determining to what
degree the therapist is narcissistic. We might even
say that the therapy consists of helping
the patient develop confidence that the therapist is
not narcissistic . It is powerfully
healing for the patient to experience a relationship
that is not based on narcissism.
Co-narcissistic people are therefore greatly helped by
the therapist’s embodiment of
Carl Rogers’ principles of accurate empathy,
interpersonal warmth and positive regard,
and personal genuineness. These behaviors by the
therapist provide a direct
contradiction to the experiences that have caused
their problems. Patients will seek to
determine how safe they are not to accommodate their
behavior to the therapist’s imagined needs, but to be able to experience and
express themselves freely. The patient will carefully observe the therapist’s
behavior and make judgments about how much the therapist is able to
consider the needs of the patient and how open he or
she is to the patient’s experience.
The patient will also want to see that the therapist
is not co-narcissistic, so that the
patient can use the therapist as a model who shows by
example that she or he believes it
is safe to be assertive and not to orient oneself
around another’s needs. The patient
will therefore observe the therapist for signs of how
assertive he or she is, and also pay
attention to examples the therapist may provide from
his or her own life to assess
how free of co-narcissism the therapist may be. In
addition to the beneficial effect of the
relationship between therapist and patient, a major
part of the therapy process involves understanding how events and experiences
in patients’ early lives resulted in their
current fears, inhibitions, and orientation towards
others. I find it very helpful in my
work as a therapist to explain narcissism and
co-narcissism to my patients. Having an
intellectual understanding of the nature of the
problem goes a great distance towards
helping them make sense of their lives and why their
relationships take on the
characteristics that they do. It also gives us a
framework within which we can discuss the
issues of concern to them, and helps them understand
what to work on to free
themselves from these problems. A description of my
own theoretical approach
can be found in the books, Transformative
Relationships (Silberschatz, 2005) and How
Psychotherapy Works (Weiss, 1993). Narcissistic people seek therapy much less frequently
than those who are primarily conarcissistic, and are more difficult to help.
Their deep-seated conviction of their own
worthlessness, and their strong defenses
against the therapist discovering this “truth” about
them, makes it difficult for them to
feel safe with the therapist and to benefit from the
therapeutic relationship. The
therapist also has to cope with the patient’s poor
ability to empathize with the therapist.
This lack of empathy is manifest in a variety of
inconsiderate behaviors, and can
challenge the therapist’s ability to maintain a good
sense of self-esteem. Narcissistic
people, compared to co-narcissistic people, are
therefore less personally satisfying for
the therapist to work with when they do seek
treatment. They are also less professionally
rewarding to work with because of their difficulty in
engaging in the therapeutic
process. Treating them empathically, helping them to
feel safer to empathize with
others, not losing self-esteem in the face of
inconsiderate behavior by the patient, and
expressing one’s own experience as appropriate are all
important elements in
working with narcissistic people. (Once, when I told a
narcissistic patient of mine that
her criticisms of me were hurting my feelings, she was
astonished. She said that
she had no idea that her behavior had any effect on
anyone. She became much kinder
towards me following that interaction.) As with the
co-narcissistic person, helping the
person to gain an understanding of the origins of
their problems (usually identification with a narcissistic parent) can also be
very useful.
Case Examples
Mario is the son of two narcissistic parents. His
parents divorced when he was ten, and,
thereafter, he spent half the week in each parent’s
home. The difficulties this
arrangement caused for him went unrecognized by either
parent. Mario’s father was so isolated and self-centered that, during the times
they were together, Mario
was often completely ignored by his father and learned
to endure long hours of
loneliness without complaint. Mario’s mother was more
able to engage with her
son, as long as he was careful to attend to her
emotional needs and not to make demands on her. Both parents moved frequently,
making it hard for Mario to form friendships and develop a sense of
connectedness, interpersonal security, and good self esteem outside of his
immediate family. What proved of immense value to Mario in preventing more
severe
psychological damage than he might otherwise have
suffered was that he spent summers with members of his extended family in Spain
Some of the effects of Mario’s upbringing were: a
diminished awareness of his own
feelings, needs, and point of view; a tendency to feel
isolated and a difficulty
connecting emotionally with others; a tendency to
accept blame, control by others,
and mistreatment without complaint and often without
awareness that it was
happening; and a loss of a sense of direction and
purpose in life. He could also be moody
and irritable. As a teenager, Mario formed a
relationship with Jill, whose parents were
psychologically healthier, but whose mother was
somewhat narcissistic. Her familiarity
with narcissism and co-narcissism helped her relate to
Mario, and Mario benefited by
spending time with Jill’s family who were warm and
accepting towards him. Mario and
Jill eventually married and had two children. Mario
did not finish college despite his high
intelligence, but was successful in his career in
business. He came to therapy at the
insistence of his wife, who was troubled by his
difficulty in forming good relationships
with the children and his tendency to be
interpersonally disconnected and insensitive.
She was also troubled by the degree of influence his
parents had over him. Mario
had some appreciation for the validity of Jill’s
concerns, and was distressed by the
problems that occurred in his relationship with Jill.
Mario made good use of therapy. He
initially discussed his wife’s concerns, and the
problems these created for him. Her
concerns primarily centered around his tendency to
isolate himself, to go about his
affairs without considering his effect on others, and
not to maintain or value a close
emotional connection with his children. She was also
concerned about his tendency to idealize his parents, particularly his mother,
and to make excuses for her behavior and
not to recognize her self-centeredness with regard to
himself or his family members.
But Mario soon was able to understand how the
experiences he had with his parents
made it difficult for him to relate to others in a way
that was satisfying to himself or to the
other person. He appreciated the therapist’s interest
in him, his ability to think about
things from Mario’s point of view, and the value there
was in understanding how his
past experiences affected his current view of himself
and others. In addition to spending
time analyzing Mario’s past and current relationships,
many of the sessions consisted
of Mario’s describing his daily activities and his
plans for the future. It was very
beneficial to him to have someone who was interested
in listening to him and who
enjoyed learning about him and sharing his life. Other
than in his relationship with Jill,
this was a new experience for him, and it greatly
helped him to have a better sense of
self-esteem. The key for Mario, and for most people
who suffer from the narcissistic/conarcissistic dilemma, was to experience a
relationship in which neither person has to sacrifice himself for the other,
and each can appreciate what the other has to offer. While the therapy
relationship is focused on the patient, it is important that the therapist
engage in it as a real relationship, so that the
patient can benefit from the experience of a
healthy relationship in which both participants can
express themselves and find
value and satisfaction in their experience with each
other. As the therapy progressed, Mario reported enjoying his children more,
feeling less co-opted by his mother and seeing her more clearly, isolating
himself less, and experiencing a greater enjoyment of his life
and the people in it.
________
Jane is the daughter of a narcissistic father and a
co-narcissistic mother. Jane’s father was domineering with the family and with
his employees in the highly successful business he built, although,
interestingly, he was quite co-narcissistic in relation to his
own father. Jane’s father was highly critical of her,
her sister, and her mother. Jane’s
mother had been severely rejected and criticized as a
child and, as a result, she
developed a strong sense of worthlessness, a loss of
inner-directedness, and a tendency to
accommodate to the expectations of others. Jane’s
mother twice tried to divorce her
husband, but her low self-esteem prevented her from
doing so; nevertheless, she did
decide to go to graduate school while raising her
children, earned a Ph.D. in art, and
taught at the college level. However, the criticism
and denigration she received from
her husband reinforced her low sense of self-esteem
and prevented her from
recognizing her talents or respecting herself. Jane,
despite her high intelligence and
independent spirit, did not do well either in school
or socially. She seemed to lack the
motivation to succeed, although while in college she
started a home design business
and consulted in graphic design. None of her efforts
brought recognition or approval from
her father, who was relentlessly disparaging. As a
result of the constant undermining by
her father, and the co-narcissistic model presented by
her mother, Jane came to
believe that she was unable to succeed in a career and
could not form satisfying, stable
relationships. Her relationships were marked by
self-sacrifice, and she had no direction in
her life. Jane made good use of her therapy.
Initially, she described the ways in which her family was dysfunctional, and
she gained confidence in the accuracy of her views by
the therapist’s agreement with her assessment. She
also tested whether the therapist needed to criticize her by characterizing
herself as inadequate in a variety of ways, but the therapist showed, by
expressing a more positive and realistic view
of her, that he had no wish to put her down. He
explained these inadequacies as a
compliance with her father’s characterizations of her
and her identification with her mother. The therapist also pointed out her many
talents, her creativity, initiative, and intelligence. Jane was able to make
use of this support by doing better at school, becoming less
enmeshed with her family, and starting a new graphic
design business. Jane was late
for a number of sessions, thereby again testing the
therapist’s wish to be critical or
disparaging of her, as her father would have done.
Instead of being critical, the therapist
interpreted these latenesses as an inhibition against
acting in her own interests by getting
the full benefit of her therapy, and therefore a
compliance with her father’s view of her.
Jane took heart from the therapist’s reactions by
continuing to develop healthier personal
relationships, being less subservient to her father,
and becoming more assertive and
successful in the pursuit of her education.
Conclusion
All of us are narcissistic, and co-narcissistic, to
varying degrees. When our self-esteem
varies in relation to how others think and feel about
us, we are experiencing a
narcissistic vulnerability. When we feel guilty or
anxious because we fear that we
are not meeting someone else’s needs or expectations,
we are being co-narcissistic.
These ordinary experiences are problematic the more
they interfere with our ability to be
successful and enjoy our lives. It is often helpful in
overcoming narcissistic anxieties
to realize that the other person’s behavior is a
result of their own views and experience,
is not a reflection on oneself, and one’s selfesteem
does not have to be affected by their
behavior. For co-narcissistic people, who experience
strong feelings of guilt and
blame, recognizing that they are not responsible for
another’s experience is a
great relief. It is important for people with either
narcissistic or co-narcissistic problems
to come to believe that they have intrinsic value,
independent of their accomplishments or what others may think of them.
The reader is referred to Elan Golomb’s book, Trapped
in the Mirror (1992) for a
variety of examples of narcissistic/conarcissistic
parent-child relationships.
Another discussion of narcissism can be
found in Children of the Self-Absorbed
(Brown, 2001).
References
Brown, Nina W. (2001). Children of the Self-Absorbed.
Oakland
Golomb, Elan PhD (1992). Trapped in the Mirror.
New York
Gootnick, Irwin MD (1997). Why You Behave in Ways
You Hate: And What You
Can Do About It.
Roseville, Ca.: Penmarin
Books.
Silberschatz, George, PhD, Ed. (2005). Transformative
Relationships. New York
Taylor & Francis. Weiss, Joseph, MD. (1993). How
Psychotherapy Works: Process and Technique. New York :
Guilford
Alan Rappoport, Ph.D., has practiced psychotherapy in San Francisco
Park, Ca. for twenty-five years. He has written
several articles on psychotherapy and has a strong interest in teaching. He teaches
CE courses on psychotherapy and
supervision and leads case conferences and teleconferences
for therapists. Dr. Rappoport
is affiliated with the San Francisco Psychotherapy
Research Group
(www.sfprg.org) and is a proponent of Control-Mastery
theory. His writings, and more information, are available at www.alanrappoport.com.
He may also be
reached at 1010
Doyle St., Ste. #13
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