Can A Narcissist Change?

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Okay, here's a question that comes up for me uh more frequently than any other it seems. And the question is this. Can a narcissist change? Now, that's a complicated question and that's a somewhat controversial question I hear often out out there in the interwebs.

[00:00:17]No, a narcissist absolutely cannot change. Uh don't buy into that possibility. I get it. If you're a victim, a survivor of narcissistic abuse and you've tried in all sorts of ways, um there is some sense that this is a person who's ultimately inflexible and won't change. And so I absolutely get that sentiment and want to honor that.

[00:00:43]So often then when I come to a question like this, I want I want to ask some questions myself. Um, I like these kinds of questions by the by the way to be more interpersonally generated because it's sometimes hard to talk about it in a context like this or on a podcast or in a presentation where we're not talking about the specifics of a person's partner uh or the CEO of a company or the pastor of a church.

[00:01:09]The the first piece that I think uh that might be important is is this one. Are you talking about someone whose personality appears narcissistic in a popular sense, which is to say a person, I talked about this in the spectrum video, a person that shows up as confident or powerful or charming or extroverted, or are we talking about someone who has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder? And I think then the answer to the question looks different for those different kinds of people because as we talked about in the spectrum video when we are thinking about when we do think about narcissism in terms of a spectrum we see people with narcissistic traits which are sometimes called styles or types.

[00:01:55]But we we also see people who have the capacity to self-reflect who the pass capacity to see their impact on others.

[00:02:03]And well we can work with that. But when we talk about someone who's diagnosibly narcissistic personality disorder, we're often talking about a person who is so defended, so rigid, so inflexible that the possibility of change is very, very slim. And so then we introduce another complex part of the equation and that's is narcissism genetic? And there's a body of literature that suggests that there are um genetic factors in narcissism. In fact, I've talked to people who are convinced that narcissism is primarily genetic. Uh, but even as I was talking to someone not too long ago who'd done some research on narcissism and and believe that genetics plays the most dominant factor, even as we talked about um the environment that that person grows up in, that person was able to concede that yeah, it's genetics, but but it's also environment, which is to say it it goes a little something like this. Here's a metaphor for you. Think about genetics as the blueprint and then environment as the the uh the the the culture in which the blueprint is expressed, right? The environment in which it's expressed, right? And so this is a little bit of what we tease out when we get into the conversation on epigenetics. There's that genet genetic foundation, but how is that predisposition expressed based on the environment? What I'd say is when we had a koi pond put in our backyard, there was a blueprint. This is kind of what it's going to look like, but it was um it was 2D and it was on paper, but when the builder began to work with our particular landscape, and by the way, it's not an obnoxious koi pond. It's kind of a a small koi pond in our backyard. Um, but when the blue when when the builder began to work with the blueprint and in particular with our little plot of land in our backyard, it's just kind of right over my left shoulder. Uh, what he discovered was that the terrain was different, a little bit different than what he had thought.

[00:04:08]He'd have to sort of move things around and the flow turned out to be a bit different than what he expected. Um, he had to bring in more material. he had to secure it a bit more than he thought he'd need to secure it because our our hill is on a slope. And so, yeah, there was a blueprint, but then there was how that was expressed in real time. And so that gets at a bit of the interaction between narcissism and environment, which is to say that there are traits, there are temperamental and biological predispositions. There are nervous systems that are uh simply come into the world with particular kinds of sensitivities um or um a particular kind of reactivity um and unique differences. The neurodeiversity conversation is really helpful on this. Um my daughters were born into the world uh 25 plus years ago with very different traits. Two very different human beings. Um whose traits were expressed in the context of our family system. Uh which is to say genetics are important. Those predispositions are important but genetics alone do not create narcissistic personality disorder. Uh narcissistic personality disorder often emerges through environments uh involving things like conditional love, inconsistent attachment, um overvaluation, uh neglect, shame, um performance pressure, uh emotional imshment, um lack of attunement, all conditions that create uh a nervous system that it now bears a kind of trauma and responds accordingly. And so nature and nurture interact and a vulnerable nervous system, a sensitive nervous system adapts to its relational environment.

[00:06:06]And so when I talk about narcissism, I talk about narcissism as a survival strategy. And this, I think, is a particularly compassionate way of talking about narcissistic personality disorder. Um, too often in these conversations, we approach it in a very pathizing way. We use these labels, narcissism, addiction, all sorts of different things to sort of say that person is the problem or to boil that person down to a particular diagnosis or disorder. I don't think that's a particularly compassionate way of approaching someone whose genetic predispositions and environment has created the conditions for this particular defensive adaptation to show up in the world. Um the reality is their grandiosity may protect a fear of humiliation. Uh their control may protect a sense of internal chaos. Their uh performance orientation may uh protect them from a sense of emptiness or abandonment or feeling unseen. Um their charm may protect them from a sense of shame. Their their withdrawal may protect them from some sense of exposure. So, so the the sense here is that the person is living, as I said in the spectrum video too, they're living out not a particular kind of personality trait, although there are names that we can put to it, their labels and descriptors that we can put to it.

[00:07:37]They're living out of a particular kind of survival strategy, a particular defensive adaptation which has allowed them to navigate a world that they experience as profoundly dangerous.

[00:07:50]Think about it this way. Their autonomic nervous system is prepped to see you and me and everyone else as the bear approaching them in the wild, right?

[00:08:02]They're living in a in a a metaphorical boxing ring. And everything is experienced in one sense or another as a threat. And so they live oppositionally and they adapt. Some adapt with woo or charm or power or you get into the different masks or faces in that particular video that I created. But it shows up in a variety of different ways, but all of them represent defensive uh survival adaptations in a world that to them is profoundly scary. And so that's a compassionate approach uh toward doing the work that involves um engaging in a way that we hope might lead to some subtle shifts. So when someone asked me the question, can a narcissist change?

[00:08:49]Uh I've got to ask, what do you mean by change? Are we talking about um trans Damascus road transformation or are we talking about subtle shifts along the way? And what I want to see are the um you know the the baby steps to to change, right? I want to see a shift and let's hold there and see how that goes.

[00:09:08]And another shift and another shift that amounts to over time characterological change. And so how do we get there?

[00:09:16]Let's turn the corner and kind of land the plane with some other categories that I bring to my work. When I begin to approach when someone says, "Can you work with this person?" Uh, can can you do the kind of work that allows my husband to to be transformed, to change?

[00:09:34]Can you do the work with this pastor so that he'll not be so narcissistic anymore? Um, the first question that I have to ask is this person dangerous um to a spouse, to a family, to the people that uh he's in relationship with. Um, before I get into like here's the inter interpersonal therapeutic work we're going to do, I've got to ask the question, are people safe? The people in relationship with this person, which is to say, is this person abusive? Is this person coercing? Is this person controlling, manipulative, um, exploitive, um, incapable of accountability? All of those things factor in situationally.

[00:10:16]And my first priority is uh to do whatever I need to do to asssure the safety of people in the orbit of the person that I am being asked to work with. And so, uh, I want to say that clearly, particularly for those of you who are listening who are survivors, you know, because when when you hear that someone like me does this work with people who are potentially diagnosibly narcissistic, you need to know that um, we're thinking of this as a both end. How can I help this person shift or change or at best be transformed? But but how am I tending to to the uh to the to the debris field that this person has created? Um the harm the impact and so that that really that comes first before any other question. Um, but there's a second question that is that is related to this that gets at the kind of environment that the person who's diagnosibly narcissistic is in. Um, which is to say, what conditions are reinforcing the narcissism? Because certain environments tend to intensify the narcissistic patterns. If I'm going to do work with someone who uh perhaps diagnosibly narcissistic um and this person is addicted to being on stage uh this person is addicted to his sense of celebrity. This person is engaged uh engaging in in positions places of power without any sense of accountability and this person is an an admirationheavy system or an emotionally dependent community. uh I don't think the work is going to be profitable until we get get that person out of that position, out of that community, out of that system. It it it's like talking about an alcoholic uh who needs to maybe stay away from the bar for five years or 10 years. Like um I was doing some work with a pastor and I had asked him to step completely out of his role off the stage and he agreed to do that. But within two months or so, he was doing a podcast and um you know I I asked him about it and he's like I well I just I can't I just feel so empty when I'm not making a difference and I'm like well that's precisely the emptiness that we want to work with you know and so I need to to them to step completely out. So you can see that we are creating the conditions for change but these are significant conditions and think of the many people who would won't agree to these and we can't even get um this far.

[00:12:59]We can't even get into the work because we haven't been able to get this far. We haven't uh been able to create the safety we need to create and we haven't uh seen them step meaningfully step away from places in which their narcissism can thrive. Right? So let's just say that those conditions have been met and a spouse says to me she feels safe and this person has stepped completely out of uh the system that he has been addicted to uh the next priority is the the safety of their particular nervous system. Because if this is a person who lives in a perpetual and metaphorical boxing ring, who experiences all of life as oppositional, the only way forward autonomically, neurobiologically is uh through a pathway of safety, which is to say that um I need to do whatever work I need to do to build trust and to create the internal conditions for safety. We've been talking about the ex external conditions of safety. Now, we're looking to create an environment and atmosphere internally within the room and within the autonomic nervous system so that a shift begins to take place from sympathetic activation, you know, the gas pedal of your nervous system, the engine revving, the person perpetually braced and vigilant and oppositional, a shift toward a place of safety, to a place of rest, to a place of connection and curiosity. When I begin to see that shift now, I know we can begin to do the work because what begins to to happen here, um, what we see here is a person who's living in and has lived in perpetual dysregulation, uh, a terror of failure, a fear of insignificance, um, attachment panic, which is to say, you know, early wounds that are expressed as, um, I was never seen when I was a child and I need you to see me now. Or just simply a fear of collapsing into shame. And uh a nervous system that has been living vigilantly and living braced for years so that they never ever have to experience that sense of abandonment, that sense of uh that fear of failure, that sense of inadequacy or shame that they fear feeling. Um, so I'm coming at this understanding that there's a story there and that there's a nervous system that is telling me that's giving me data that suggests that um their entire orient orientation is one that is defensive and self-protective.

[00:15:39]And so, uh, we're creating the safety that allows us to begin to do the work of, uh, shifting them autonomically from a place of of vigilance and, uh, self-p protection to a place of rest and connection. And that would be the next step, what I would call the step of integration, the long journey of integration, which requires them to begin to do their inner work. This is not mere cognitive behavioral work. This is not reframing bad thoughts, right?

[00:16:10]This is not a um threemon sabbatical and then you're cured. Um this is not this is not even a five-day intensive with Chuck and then you're good to go. This is the long work of integration. And when I do my five-day intensives, in some ways those are are that's just the beginning of the work. And sometimes it's merely diagnostic, you know, but now we're talking about a years's long journey that uh is not not about image repair. It's not about behavior management. It's not about a public apology tour. This is about doing the inner work of understanding how one's autonomic nervous system was primed to defensiveness. What's what's the state that the person is in? This is where that question, where are you, is so important to me. I talk about this in my book, Healing What's Within? What kind of defensive and self-protective state are they living in? What uh what nervous system responses are most dominant?

[00:17:08]Sometimes it's a fight response, sometimes it's more of a pleasing fawn response, sometimes it's more of a flight response. Which nervous system responses are most dominant? And can we begin to see a subtle shift to a sense of safety and connection? Uh the second question, who told you in Genesis chapter 3? In other words, what's the story behind it? What's the story behind this posture of defensiveness? Because everyone has a story. And in my almost 30 years of working with folks like this, each and every person on the narcissistic spectrum has some story of how they unconsciously, unwittingly became self-protected, became defended.

[00:17:48]Perhaps they were abused or harmed or profoundly misunderstood um or abandoned or neglected in some way. And their nervous system again unconsciously, unwittingly po uh postured itself against the world, postured itself in a way that that they they began to see the world as threat, right? That they began to see people as bears coming at them to harm them. And so, of course, now you can see just the way I'm I'm sort of um describing this bodily, right? They they approach the world from a posture of of defensiveness.

[00:18:24]My hope is that in the room we create enough safety for their body to begin to shift to a more safe orientation, a more rested and connected orientation, what we call the vententral veagal system, and for them to begin to tell the story and integrate the story, the various aspects of the story, how they were harmed and how they've harmed others, um how they were abused and how they've abused others, how they've experienced trauma and how they've traumatized others. And so we're doing a lot of work over the course of months and years to uh to grieve wounds, to understand trauma adaptations, to integrate disowned parts of them, to begin to metabolize shame in a way that they no longer fear collapsing into it, being empty, um so that they be become people who are capable of vulnerability. One of the beautiful things that you uh begin to see here is that they begin to see themselves not primarily as that part of themselves, that grandiose part of themselves, that defensive adaptation, but they begin to see that there's more to them, that there is this true self capable of curiosity and empathy and humility. I remember working with a guy and he showed up in a very lawyerly and prosecutorial way. And I remember one of the key moments being uh a time when I looked at him and I said, "Your prosecutor must be exhausted." And he looked at me with this sense of like, "Yeah, he is." And he began talking about the prosecutor into third person, like, "Yeah, everything, every every relationship, every meeting that he's in, he feels like he's got to prosecute his case. Yeah, he's exhausted." and he began to see that he was more than the the prosecutor, which is to say that I'm working from a framework that this is a person created in the image of God and that buried beneath all of those ad adaptations is what Frederick Benner calls the original shimmering self, the true self. And when we get there, they begin to see that that self will not collapse into shame. That self is in fact resilient and uh powerful in ways that they never knew. Um, and there's a real beauty there. Again, this is yearslong work, as they begin to live into this new true self. Um, but as they live there over time and as they do the work of tracking how they've been harmed and how they've harmed others, we get to the next step in the process, a step that I call reckoning. Because in this process, there's both empathy and accountability.

[00:21:02]um that person will not change or be transformed without the empathy that I bring to the relationship. But there's also a recognition of accountability.

[00:21:10]And what I've discovered is that early on, if the person is still living out of that defensive, adaptive, self-protected part, um apologies will be thin. Um repentance will be um self-protective.

[00:21:26]Everything that they offer will be in service of image management. But as we do this work and as there's more integration, as it as they're able to to to live out of their true that original shimmering self, that true self, um, apologies begin to become more thick and substantial. Like they begin to name with specificity not just how they were harmed earlier in their own stories, but how they've harmed others. And they're able to do this without collapsing into shame, which was their fear in the first place. They're able to do this in a way that they're able to hold space for the uh the impact on the other without immediately moving to forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, which is I've seen time and time again with with people who are diagnosably narcissistic and incapable of metabolizing shame. And so now we get to the reckoning, a growing capacity for empathy, for accountability, um a capacity of for repentance that comes with a deep sense of grief. uh a an ability to do repair work, a sense of of of mutuality when they've lived so often in hierarchical and oppositional kinds of ways. So, it's not performative, it's not self-protect self-protective, it's genuine ownership.

[00:22:48]And so, as you can see, uh as I answer this question, can people change? There is a yes and no involved because there are lots of steps along the way. And when there is so much defensiveness, when there's both a genetic story, a blueprint, and and and the building, you know, the environmental factors, the cultural factors that go into it, when you've got that that crockpot, so to speak, uh where where there's a life story that has bred so much self-p protection and defensiveness, it takes a while to get to that place where there's there's some capacity and availability and curiosity And as you've heard me say, if we can get there, there's the possibility of change. Um, but but to do this work, I've got to believe that you you cannot reduce people to a diagnosis and you cannot reduce people to their defensive adaptations. There's so much more to them. Um, nor should we ever minimize the harm that narcissism can cause. And we hold both of those hand in hand. Uh the journey ultimately for those who are on the narcissistic spectrum is to become more themselves, more human, more authentic, more truthful, more capable of love, more capable of mutuality. But we measure that more often than not in small shifts rather than Damascus road experiences.

[00:24:13]And it takes a lot of patience along the way.