Heal NPD28 Elo 2025

What If Splitting Is Dissociation? A New Way to Understand Narcissism

In this episode, Dr. Ettensohn offers a groundbreaking perspective on one of the most misunderstood features of pathological narcissism: splitting.

Drawing from the work of Philip Bromberg and his own clinical practice, Dr. Ettensohn reframes splitting not as black-and-white thinking, but as a dissociative process rooted in early relational trauma.

Rather than treating splitting as a rigid symptom, this episode explores how dissociated self-states form when conflicting emotional truths, such as shame, longing, idealization, and rage, cannot safely coexist. What looks like instability or contradiction is actually a protective adaptation.

Dr. Ettensohn shows how these self-states develop as compartmentalized responses to unmanageable experience, and how they survive into adulthood, shaping identity, memory, and relationships.

Through clear explanation and compassionate framing, he illustrates how healing involves standing in the spaces between self-states, without collapsing into any one of them.

Whether you live with these experiences yourself or work with people who do, this video offers a radically humanizing and clinically grounded way to understand dissociation, narcissism, and the divided self.

References: Bromberg, P. M. (1996). Standing in the spaces: The multiplicity of self and the psychoanalytic relationship. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 32(4), 509–535.

Purchase Unmasking Narcissism: A Guide to Understanding the Narcissist in Your Life here: https://amzn.to/3nG9FgH

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://rb.gy/cklpum LISTEN ON GOOGLE PODCASTS: https://rb.gy/fotpca LISTEN ON AMAZON MUSIC: https://rb.gy/g4yzh8

VISIT THE WEBSITE: https://www.healnpd.org

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(62)

The Birth of Sorrow | Part 3: Conflict and Defense In Neurotic-Level Narcissism

This is the third part of a three-part exploration of narcissistic personality style at the neurotic level of personality organization. In this episode, Dr. Ettensohn examines the defensive architectu...

3 Kesä 43min

Internal Absence: Emptiness in NPD

Dr. Mark Ettensohn examines the experience of emptiness in narcissistic personality disorder and other forms of personality pathology. Rather than approaching personality disorders as collections of t...

26 Touko 15min

Living with Pathological Narcissism: What Loved Ones Reveal

This episode continues the Heal NPD Seminar Series with Dr. Mark Ettensohn, joined by his associates Deanna Young, Psy.D., and Danté Spencer, Ph.D. In this session, the group discusses the paper “Livi...

26 Touko 58min

The DSM's New Model of Personality Disorders: The Good, The Bad, and What's Missing

This episode continues the Heal NPD Seminar Series with Dr. Mark Ettensohn, joined by his associates Deanna Young, Psy.D., and Danté Spencer, Ph.D. In this session, the group examines the Alternative ...

26 Touko 58min

Narcissism Is Not a Moral Category

Dr. Mark Ettensohn examines a growing tendency in public discourse to treat narcissism as a moral category rather than as a psychological construct. The episode explores why this shift occurs and h...

26 Touko 13min

Accountability Without Dehumanization

Dr. Mark Ettensohn addresses a question that frequently arises in discussions of narcissism and abuse: Is it possible to maintain accountability without dehumanizing? Can someone preserve firm boundar...

26 Touko 15min

2025 Study: Narcissism Does Not Predict Abuse

This episode continues the Heal NPD Seminar Series with Dr. Mark Ettensohn, joined by his associates Deanna Young, Psy.D., and Danté Spencer, M.A. In this session, the group examines a recent empiric...

26 Touko 53min

The Ethics of Narc-Abuse Content: Why 'It Helps' Isn't Enough

In this episode, Dr. Mark Ettensohn examines a common defense of online “narcissistic abuse” content: the claim that, even if imperfect or inaccurate, it ultimately helps people leave harmful relation...

9 Tammi 13min