Healing from Narcissistic Abuse: How Different Therapies Can Help
Recovering from narcissistic abuse is a complex and deeply personal journey. Unlike other forms of emotional trauma, abuse by a narcissist can leave you grappling with confusion, self-doubt and a shattered sense of identity. The abuse is often insidious and manipulative, leading you to question your own reality and worth. As such, the path to healing requires a multifaceted approach, one that addresses emotional wounds, cognitive distortions and the reestablishment of personal autonomy.
Fortunately, I am trained in a full range of therapeutic interventions providing the tools, insights and support needed for your recovery. In this article, I will talk through how various forms of therapy—including talking therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), narrative therapy, trauma-focused therapy and narcissistic abuse-informed life coaching—can help you on your path to recovery.
1. Talking Therapy: Feeling Seen, Heard and Understood
Talking therapy (or psychotherapy) is a broad term that encompasses various forms of counselling and psychological support. At its core, it provides a safe and confidential space for you to process your experiences and explore your emotions.
How it helps:
Validation: Victims of narcissistic abuse often experience gaslighting, leaving them unsure about what actually happened. A trained therapist can validate the survivor's experiences and help re-establish trust in their own perceptions.
Emotional release: Talking therapy allows space for the expression of anger, grief, shame or fear—emotions that are frequently suppressed during abusive relationships and need a professional and safe space to be re-engaged with.
Supportive relationship: A therapeutic alliance provides a contrast to the toxic dynamics of the narcissistic relationship, helping survivors rebuild trust and self-worth, leaving you feeling seen, heard and understood.
Talking therapy lays the groundwork for deep and long-lasting psychological healing and can serve as a firm, long term foundation to more structured and immediate therapeutic approaches like CBT or DBT.
2. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Rewire your Brain
CBT is one of the most widely practised and researched therapeutic modalities. It focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns and behaviours, and can be a powerful tool when used in combination with other therapies.
How it helps:
Identifying cognitive distortions: Narcissistic abuse often leaves survivors with distorted beliefs about themselves—e.g., “I’m not good enough”, “Everything is my fault”, or “No one will ever love me.” CBT helps challenge and replace these toxic beliefs.
Breaking cycles of self-blame: CBT equips survivors with tools to stop internalising the abuser’s projections and false narratives.
Developing coping strategies: Survivors learn practical techniques to manage anxiety, panic attacks and depressive symptoms often associated with narcissistic abuse.
While CBT may not address deeper trauma responses directly, it’s highly effective in providing survivors with clarity, emotional regulation, and a more realistic view of themselves and their relationships. It is an excellent companion to talking therapy as it provides some immediate relief to day to day symptoms, while we continue to work on the longer lasting and deeper impacts of the abuse.
3. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): Incorporating your Emotions
DBT is increasingly recognised for its usefulness in trauma recovery, especially where emotional dysregulation is a challenge, and is full of great, workable practices to help daily challenges caused by PTSD and CPTSD.
How it helps:
Mindfulness skills: Survivors often dissociate or experience emotional numbing as a result of chronic abuse. DBT teaches mindfulness, helping them stay present and connected to their emotions.
Distress tolerance: DBT offers tools for managing overwhelming emotions without resorting to self-destructive behaviours.
Interpersonal effectiveness: Many survivors struggle with setting boundaries or asserting themselves. DBT teaches assertiveness, healthy communication and the ability to say “no” without guilt.
Emotional validation: DBT balances change with acceptance, teaching clients that it’s okay to feel what they feel while also working towards healthier responses.
For those who’ve experienced intense emotional manipulation, DBT offers us a structured and compassionate way to rebuild emotional resilience and learn some really helpful techniques to help you from day one of working together.
4. Narrative Therapy: Reclaiming Your Story
Narrative therapy is a collaborative approach that centres on the idea that people make meaning of their lives through stories. Narcissistic abuse often distorts the survivor's personal narrative, replacing it with a narrative crafted by the abuser, usually in behaviours such as gaslighting, victim blaming and toxic shaming.
How it helps:
Externalising the problem: Instead of internalising the abuse, survivors learn to see the abusive behaviour as something outside of themselves—e.g., “the gaslighting” rather than “my failure to remember things.”
Reclaiming identity: Survivors often feel they've lost themselves in the relationship. Narrative therapy helps them re-author their life story, highlighting strengths, values and resilience.
Deconstructing false narratives: The abuser’s voice often lives on in the survivor’s mind, criticising and blaming. Narrative therapy helps disentangle that voice from the survivor’s true self.
Empowerment through storytelling: Rewriting one’s story is a powerful act of healing, allowing survivors to regain agency and move from victimhood to survivorship.
Narrative therapy is especially beneficial for those who feel silenced or invalidated and need to rediscover their voice. It is a vital tool in reclaiming your sense of self-identity.
5. Trauma Therapy: Healing the Nervous System
Narcissistic abuse doesn’t just hurt emotionally—it often leaves deep neurological scars. Survivors may suffer from CPTSD, chronic anxiety, hypervigilance, nightmares or dissociation (shut down). Using trauma-focused therapies, we will address these symptoms by working directly with the nervous system and trauma memory.
Types of trauma therapy include:
Rewind Trauma Technique (RTT) Helps process traumatic memories and removes flashbacks via a highly effective neural rewiring process.
Somatic Experiencing: Focuses on the body’s physical responses to trauma, helping survivors release stored tension and trauma from the nervous system.
Internal Family Systems (IFS): Helps individuals explore and heal the wounded inner “parts” created through trauma.
How it helps:
Reduces trauma symptoms: These therapies reduce flashbacks, panic attacks and emotional numbness.
Restores sense of safety: Survivors learn to regulate their nervous system, leading to greater emotional stability.
Rebuilds trust in the body: Trauma can disconnect individuals from their physical selves. Somatic work helps survivors tune into bodily sensations, instincts and boundaries.
Trauma therapy is particularly crucial for those who have experienced long-term narcissistic abuse, such as from a parent or partner. I use a unique somatic approach which works to create balance between the body, the thoughts and the emotions and is an amazing way to safely start exploring the deepest and most difficult traumas.
6. Narcissistic Abuse-Informed Life Coaching: Forward-Focused Healing
Narcissistic abuse-informed life coaching is a relatively new but rapidly growing field. Unlike traditional therapy, which often focuses on past wounds, coaching is forward-focused and practical, aimed at helping survivors rebuild their lives and achieve personal goals. Working with a trauma and narcissistic abuse informed coach allows you to use our sessions to be proactive and forward-looking, as well as using the other therapies to allow for deeper healing.
How it helps:
Education and insight: Coaches trained in narcissistic abuse can help clients understand narcissistic traits, manipulation tactics and trauma bonding. We are here to validate and understand.
Empowerment and accountability: Coaching focuses on building confidence, self-reliance and goal-setting. We are here to help you move into the future with support.
Re-establishing boundaries: Clients learn to identify red flags and develop stronger interpersonal boundaries. We are here to help provide accountability and advice.
Support with practical recovery: This can include navigating post-abuse decisions like no contact, co-parenting with a narcissist, or rebuilding finances and career after emotional devastation. We are here for support, even out of hours.
Working alongside trauma therapy, narcissistic abuse coaching complements therapeutic work by offering action-oriented tools, education and personalised support for moving onwards and into your new life.
Integrating Therapies for Holistic Recovery
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to healing from narcissistic abuse. The most effective approach involves combining therapies, which I offer in all my sessions. An example of how it might work is:
Starting with talking therapy to process emotions and gain initial support.
Add CBT or DBT in when needed for practical skills and emotional regulation.
Explore narrative therapy to reconstruct your identity and sense of self.
Engage in trauma therapy to address somatic symptoms, nervous system dysregulation and remove debilitating flashbacks.
Narcissistic abuse-informed coaching to rebuild your life and relationships post-abuse, offering goal setting and accountability between sessions.
This integrated model not only treats the psychological symptoms but also supports you in reclaiming your autonomy, self-identity and sense of purpose.
Final Thoughts
Recovering from narcissistic abuse is a profound and often painful process, but it is entirely possible. With the right therapeutic support, you can begin to make sense of what happened, restore your self-worth and build a future rooted in authenticity and self-respect.
Whether you're just beginning to recognise the impact of narcissistic abuse or are deep into your healing journey, know that you are not alone. Working with me offers more than just coping strategies—it offers hope, clarity and the chance to reclaim your life.
