Therapy for Narcissistic Abuse
You’re Not Crazy. You’re Recovering From Narcissistic Abuse.
Virtual therapy for narcissistic abuse and emotionally abusive relationships, helping adults recover, rebuild self-trust, and feel like themselves again.
If you've spent months—or even years—questioning your own memory, apologizing for things you didn't do, feeling like you've lost yourself, or wondering whether you're the problem, you're not alone. These are common experiences after prolonged narcissistic abuse.
How Therapy for Narcissistic Abuse Can Help
Narcissistic abuse can leave you doubting your memory, judgment, instincts, and even your understanding of what happened.
Therapy for narcissistic abuse can help you recognize patterns of manipulation, process traumatic experiences, rebuild self-trust, develop healthier boundaries, and feel safer and more confident in your own judgment.
Therapy is not about telling you what to think or making decisions for you. It is about helping you understand the patterns you've experienced, process the trauma, rebuild trust in your own judgment, and become less vulnerable to manipulation.
The goal is not simply to understand the narcissist better. It is to help you understand and trust yourself again.
The Experience of Narcissistic Abuse
Narcissistic abuse can involve gaslighting, coercive control, intermittent reinforcement, trauma bonding, blame-shifting, intimidation, and emotional, psychological, physical, financial, or spiritual abuse.
But often the clearest sign is what has happened to you.
You may doubt your memory even when you know what you saw and heard. You may walk on eggshells, trying to prevent an explosion you cannot predict. You may have lost pieces of yourself—your confidence, ambition, sense of safety, relationships, reputation, money, or health.
And when you try to hold the other person accountable, somehow you end up defending yourself instead.
You may wonder whether you're “too sensitive,” whether you're overreacting, or even whether you're the narcissist.
The gaslighting is real, but you're not imagining what happened to you. And you're not crazy.
Whether the relationship is with a romantic partner, parent, sibling, adult child, coworker, or someone else significant in your life, the details may differ. The effects can be remarkably similar.
Not sure whether what you're experiencing fits these patterns? Learn more about the signs and patterns of narcissistic relationships →
You May Be Experiencing Narcissistic Abuse If...
You find yourself thinking:
✓ Maybe I'm overreacting.
✓ Maybe I'm the narcissist.
✓ I don't know what's real anymore.
✓ I apologize even when I haven't done anything wrong.
✓ I feel guilty for setting boundaries.
✓ I miss someone who repeatedly hurt me.
✓ I wonder whether what I'm experiencing is trauma bonding.
✓ I can't stop thinking about the relationship even though I know it wasn't healthy.
✓ My friends or family have turned against me after hearing only one side of the story.
✓ I feel like I've completely lost myself.
If these thoughts feel familiar, you are not alone. They are incredibly common among survivors of narcissistic abuse and often reflect the effects of prolonged emotional manipulation—not personal weakness.
Why Does the Person Who Hurt Me Keep Wanting My Attention?
One of the most confusing parts of narcissistic abuse is realizing that someone can treat you badly while still seeming to need your attention, reaction, or emotional engagement.
You may find yourself asking:
“If they don't love me, why won't they leave me alone?”
The concept of narcissistic supply can help explain this. Attention, validation, admiration, fear, anger—even your attempts to defend yourself—can keep you emotionally engaged.
Understanding that can help shift the question from Why are they doing this to me? to:
Why am I still giving this person so much of my emotional energy?
Learn More About Narcissistic Supply →
A Client's Experience of Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
For many people, understanding what happened is only the beginning. Healing means learning to trust yourself again, reconnecting with your body, and finding tools that actually help you move forward.
One client described her experience this way:
What brought me to therapy was the end of a relationship with a narcissist and the difficulty I was having processing the pain that came with it. I needed help making sense of what had happened.
When I began, I was struggling with my internal world. I kept questioning a decision I knew, on some level, was right — and I had lost the ability to simply live in my body. My trauma was rooted in childhood, and my body had truly kept the score, holding onto what my mind couldn't fully process.
I've been on a therapeutic journey my whole life having grown up with a narcissistic mother and have worked with many therapists along the way. What set Francesca apart was that she offered me tools I had never encountered before — ones that quieted the noise in my head and, for the first time, let me sit with my body without checking out.
I feel stronger and more resilient than I ever have.
Amino acid support, in particular, has been life-changing in helping me work through trauma that had been living in my body for years.
To anyone trying to understand why they were with a narcissist, or struggling through the aftermath of leaving: good therapy, paired with self-education and the right tools — amino acid support, EMDR, spirituality — can change your life. It did mine.
— Linda B.
Narcissistic Abuse Can Happen in Any Relationship
Narcissistic abuse is not limited to romantic relationships. You may be dealing with a parent, sibling, adult child, friend, coworker, boss, business partner, or another significant person in your life.
The circumstances may look very different, but the effects can be remarkably similar: confusion, hypervigilance, self-doubt, shame, fear, and the gradual erosion of trust in your own judgment.
Therapy can help you understand the particular dynamics of your relationship, recognize manipulation more clearly, and develop ways of protecting yourself that make sense for your circumstances.
If the abuse is happening at work, I have a dedicated resource on the specific patterns that can emerge there:
Explore Workplace Narcissistic Abuse →
Narcissistic Abuse During Divorce and Custody
Separating or divorcing a narcissistic partner can turn what should be the practical process of ending a relationship into another arena for manipulation, control, intimidation, and blame.
When children are involved, the stakes can feel even higher. Abuse may continue through conflict, reputation attacks, attempts to manipulate the children, or other ways of maintaining control after the relationship has ended.
You do not have to wait until you leave to begin getting stronger. Therapy can help you understand what is happening, become less reactive to manipulation, rebuild your confidence, and think more clearly about your options before making major decisions. For some people, particularly where there is fear or coercive control, taking time to become stronger and develop a safe plan before acting can be especially important.
Please note: I do not take on cases where there is not a custody order in place.
Learn More About Divorcing a Narcissist →
My Approach to Therapy for Narcissistic Abuse
Therapy for narcissistic abuse needs to address more than what happened. It also needs to address what the experience has done to your confidence, your ability to trust yourself, and the way your mind and body respond to threat.
I use an individualized, trauma-informed approach that may include psychotherapy, EMDR, nervous system regulation, neuroscience-based techniques, and—when appropriate—amino acid therapy.
There is no single formula for recovery. We work with what is happening for you, what is keeping you stuck, and what will help you feel stronger, safer, and more like yourself again.
Learn More About My Approach →
Rebuilding Self-Trust
Gaslighting can leave you questioning your memory, judgment, feelings, and perceptions.
In therapy, I don't want to tell you what to think. I want to help you become more confident in your own ability to recognize patterns, evaluate situations, and make decisions for yourself.
Developing Healthy Boundaries
Boundaries are not about controlling another person's behavior. They are about understanding what you will and will not accept and deciding what you will do when those limits are crossed.
For many people recovering from narcissistic abuse, developing boundaries also means learning to tolerate the discomfort that can come with disappointing someone, saying no, or choosing yourself.
EMDR for Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
Narcissistic abuse can leave behind more than memories. Emotional triggers, deeply ingrained beliefs, and learned responses can continue long after the relationship has ended.
When appropriate, I incorporate EMDR to help process traumatic experiences and the responses connected to them, so that the past has less power over how you feel and respond in the present.
For some clients, this becomes an important part of feeling safer, trusting themselves again, and responding from confidence rather than fear.
Learn More About EMDR for Narcissistic Abuse →
Intensive support when you need it most
During the first two weeks of therapy, I provide text support because this can be one of the most emotionally overwhelming periods.
As you begin recognizing manipulation, changing how you respond, and protecting yourself differently, difficult moments can arise between sessions.
You don't have to navigate those moments alone.
What to Expect From Therapy With Me
You don't need to arrive with everything figured out. You don't need the perfect language to describe what happened.
We'll start by looking at your history, what is happening now, and what you want to change. From there, our work may involve understanding relationship patterns, rebuilding self-trust, developing boundaries, processing traumatic experiences, and helping you feel more grounded in yourself.
When appropriate, I may incorporate EMDR and other trauma-focused approaches. The work is individualized. We go at a pace that makes sense for you and what you're dealing with.
Virtual Therapy for Narcissistic Abuse
My practice is entirely virtual, and for many people recovering from narcissistic abuse, meeting from a familiar and private space can actually feel safer.
You have more control over your environment. You can choose where you sit, what you have around you, and where you want to be when we finish. There is no waiting room, no drive home after a difficult session, and no need to pull yourself together before walking back out into the world.
That can be particularly valuable when we are working with trauma. If a session brings up something painful, you are already in a space you have chosen, and we can take time at the end to help you feel grounded before we stop.
Virtual does not mean distant. Our sessions are active, focused therapeutic work. We work with whatever is happening for you—whether that's something that happened years ago, a pattern you're beginning to recognize, or a text message you received ten minutes before our session.
If privacy at home is a concern, we can also talk about what setting will allow you to participate as safely and privately as possible.
Can I Start Therapy if I'm Still in the Relationship?
Yes. You do not need to have left the relationship—or even decided what you want to do—before beginning therapy.
My role is not to tell you whether to stay or leave. Therapy can give you a place to understand what is happening, recognize patterns more clearly, rebuild trust in your own judgment, and become stronger while you decide what is right for you.
You can begin getting stronger before you know what comes next.
Imagine Feeling Like Yourself Again And…
trusting yourself again
feeling calm
no longer obsessing over what happened
setting boundaries without guilt
recognizing manipulation immediately
enjoying relationships that feel safe
My goal isn't simply helping you survive narcissistic abuse.
It's helping you become someone a narcissist can never control again.
Ready to Begin?
If you're wondering whether therapy for narcissistic abuse might help you, let's talk.
You don't need to know exactly what happened, have your story organized, or know what you want to do next. You can come exactly as you are.
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation and tell me what's happening.