This is so interesting. I’ve listened to a few of Sam Vaknin’s lectures. Do you think the narcissist can integrate their true self without therapy in their lifetime? Or will it always be something they need external help to achieve?
Thanks Eugenia. There are a few ways that can happen, yes, the primary condition for me being the subject’s potential for Dabrowski’s positive disintegration, or lack thereof. But for pathological narcissism/NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), change is harder for a simple, structural reason: the narcissistic style is built to avoid experiences like shame, dependency, uncertainty, mutuality, genuine self-reflection, etc., that typically lead to integration. In NPD, the self is largely organized around grandiosity or entitlement with low empathy and fragile self-esteem regulation; it tends to be ego-syntonic (it feels like “me,” so it doesn’t automatically register as a problem). Across major psychodynamic models, narcissism involves distortions in self/other representations and affect regulation, which are relationally formed and so relationally repaired as well, say via a consistent, reality-based, emotionally attuned relationship, like Kernberg and Kohut explain.
Here's where it gets interesting though. Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration or TPD is, at heart, a developmental model: many live mostly in Primary Integration, some undergo disintegration through crisis or inner conflict, while a smaller number reach directed growth and Secondary Integration, a more authentic, self-chosen personality structure. A narcissistic personality style usually fits in the Primary Integration group, or Level I, where the person can look “integrated”—confident, coherent—but the integration is primitive, organized around drive, mainly, status, social mirroring, etc., rather than self-authored values. Level II, of Unilevel Disintegration, is where narcissistic collapse starts to appear, as in oscillation between grandiosity and worthlessness, rage, etc. There’s distress, but it’s not yet organized into a clear trajectory. In Level III, they begin to experience a real hierarchy, higher vs lower, authentic vs performative. Shame can transform into guilt and responsibility, rage or envy can transform into admiration and aspiration. This is the first real opening toward a true self. Level IV, called Directed Multilevel Disintegration, is about finding an autonomous capacity to choose growth over comfort, and values over image. The person actively rebuilds themselves, their habits and aims, relationships, etc., toward a “personality ideal.” And so we get to Level V, the Secondary Integration, that of an integrated personality: coherent identity, empathic relatedness, principles, less internal compulsion to inflate or defend.
Sorry if this is a bit clunky. In essence, a narcissist can integrate without therapy if they develop enough developmental potential and especially Dabrowski’s Third Factor in order to move from Level I/II into Level III/IV. Therapy can accelerate and stabilize this transition, but the engine of change is ultimately internal.
This is so interesting. I’ve listened to a few of Sam Vaknin’s lectures. Do you think the narcissist can integrate their true self without therapy in their lifetime? Or will it always be something they need external help to achieve?
Thanks Eugenia. There are a few ways that can happen, yes, the primary condition for me being the subject’s potential for Dabrowski’s positive disintegration, or lack thereof. But for pathological narcissism/NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), change is harder for a simple, structural reason: the narcissistic style is built to avoid experiences like shame, dependency, uncertainty, mutuality, genuine self-reflection, etc., that typically lead to integration. In NPD, the self is largely organized around grandiosity or entitlement with low empathy and fragile self-esteem regulation; it tends to be ego-syntonic (it feels like “me,” so it doesn’t automatically register as a problem). Across major psychodynamic models, narcissism involves distortions in self/other representations and affect regulation, which are relationally formed and so relationally repaired as well, say via a consistent, reality-based, emotionally attuned relationship, like Kernberg and Kohut explain.
Here's where it gets interesting though. Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration or TPD is, at heart, a developmental model: many live mostly in Primary Integration, some undergo disintegration through crisis or inner conflict, while a smaller number reach directed growth and Secondary Integration, a more authentic, self-chosen personality structure. A narcissistic personality style usually fits in the Primary Integration group, or Level I, where the person can look “integrated”—confident, coherent—but the integration is primitive, organized around drive, mainly, status, social mirroring, etc., rather than self-authored values. Level II, of Unilevel Disintegration, is where narcissistic collapse starts to appear, as in oscillation between grandiosity and worthlessness, rage, etc. There’s distress, but it’s not yet organized into a clear trajectory. In Level III, they begin to experience a real hierarchy, higher vs lower, authentic vs performative. Shame can transform into guilt and responsibility, rage or envy can transform into admiration and aspiration. This is the first real opening toward a true self. Level IV, called Directed Multilevel Disintegration, is about finding an autonomous capacity to choose growth over comfort, and values over image. The person actively rebuilds themselves, their habits and aims, relationships, etc., toward a “personality ideal.” And so we get to Level V, the Secondary Integration, that of an integrated personality: coherent identity, empathic relatedness, principles, less internal compulsion to inflate or defend.
Sorry if this is a bit clunky. In essence, a narcissist can integrate without therapy if they develop enough developmental potential and especially Dabrowski’s Third Factor in order to move from Level I/II into Level III/IV. Therapy can accelerate and stabilize this transition, but the engine of change is ultimately internal.