I’m deeply frustrated with a situation with a friend who has life long really, untreated, very severe mental health issues & who is currently getting ‘therapy’. Essentially this person has worked with someone who’s core training is Hypnotherapy for many years which is valid & for many, most people with a more regular nervous system that would be plenty of self development for an entire lifetime. The problem is that my friends issues are of some of the most, if not *the* most difficult particular, specific combination of issues that require really intensive specific therapy to unknot.
This kind of help is absolutely available, it’s not cheap & there are not loads of people offering it of a high calibre but the therapists are there & they are essential, absolutely essential to healing this particular group/combination of nervous system/ mental health difficulties. Dr Ettensohn (below) has a waiting list, his NPD specialism makes him an expert in the structure of both NPD & BPD & of course the overlap which I think we both have tbh, we have mirror yin yang of these I think, me & my friend, both amidst other issues, it’s complicated. You could request his suggestions for therapists.
Otherwise, the types of therapy to look for, there’s a whole bunch: Schema Therapy, Transference-focused Psychotherapy, Mentalisation-based Treatment, CBT/DBT, MIT/IPT & Psychoanalysis, any of these will help massively.
Tinkering around the edges absolutely will not do it & is skiving off the real work. I only recently realised what his therapist was doing when he went to his therapy after being in very low mood & came back more armoured, more stoically attached to his defences than I’d seen him for ages & the penny dropped for me. This therapist is just tinkering around the edges, providing a feel good affirmation when what’s needed is excavation & reconstruction with these very specific techniques listed which have a proven track record across the personality disorders.
So this is an intentionally vague note & is mainly a missive of comm to him, a warning, you are treading water as the current pulls you out, away from the shore & your dearest hopes & dreams for your life, there is a life boat nearby but you need to beckon it, wave to it, shout to it, a rubber ring won’t do, the storm is rising, hail the professionals, do it now or drift on a few more years treading water getting ever more lost, missing even more love, it’s up to you but I want you here, back on dry land open to sanity & affection, open to friends in the real world wherever you happen to be.
