Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Hello,
I am Dr. Marie Beatrice Hyppolite. I hold a doctorate in Health Science with emphasis on Global Health and master’s degree in social work. I have over 14 years of experience in the field of health and human services.
This podcast is primarily focused on mental health and the quality-of-life elements that affect it such as divorce, death, domestic violence, trauma, toxic relationships, and single parenthood to name a few. It is no secret that mental health challenges continue to profoundly impact modern society although not enough discussion is given due to stigma. Research has shown an increase of 25 % in mental health crises after COVID-19. It is important to have honest, uncomfortable conversations about mental health while being supportive. Although we are interdependent, change begins with the individual, hence “your world.”
I welcome you to join me on my journey and look forward to your responses.
Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Unmasking Narcissism
The shadow knows what we hide from ourselves. In this riveting conversation, depth psychologist Andrew Charles returns to unpack the complex relationship between depth psychology, shame, and narcissistic personality disorder—offering insights that transcend popular psychology tropes and internet diagnoses.
Charles guides us through the four essential stages of Jungian psychotherapy: confession, where we acknowledge what we've been avoiding; elucidation, which contextualizes our experiences; education, providing psychological frameworks; and transformation, where split-off parts are reintegrated. "We cannot heal what we are avoiding," he reminds us, highlighting how the Jungian journey toward individuation requires confronting our shadow—those disowned aspects of ourselves we've rejected or repressed.
When discussing narcissism specifically, Charles provides a comprehensive breakdown of the nine DSM-5 criteria required for clinical diagnosis, from grandiose self-importance to arrogant behaviors. But what makes this conversation truly illuminating is his compassionate framing of narcissistic traits as responses to profound shame wounds. While true narcissists rarely seek therapy voluntarily, those with narcissistic wounding can find healing through depth psychological approaches like dream interpretation and active imagination—techniques that bypass ego defenses to access unconscious material.
Charles emphasizes the delicate balance required in this work: creating psychological holding that allows individuals to face difficult truths while building genuine connection. By "holding the tension of opposites" and embracing paradox, Jungian therapy offers a pathway not just to symptom reduction but toward psychological wholeness. Whether you're curious about depth psychology or seeking understanding about narcissistic patterns in yourself or others, this episode offers profound insights into the healing journey.
Listen now and discover how what we avoid most might hold the key to our psychological liberation. How might acknowledging your own shadow transform your relationship with yourself?
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is your World. Hello everyone, and welcome back to a new session of your World with Dr Beatrice Ippolit, and today we have a very great topic to talk about. So today we're going to talk about deaf psychology, shame and narcissistic personality disorder, and we have the expert with us today. Last time we had that person with us where we spoke about deaf psychology, and today it is my privilege to welcome back on the show my friend, Andrew Charles.
Speaker 2:Hello, hi, beatrice. It's wonderful to be back here today on your World, with you, beatrice, and yes, as you said said, today we'll be talking about depth psychology, shame and narcissism, particularly narcissistic disorder, from a depth psychological frame. As you know, there's a lot of information in the public domain about narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder and some of it is somewhat cult-like and some of it is somewhat pop psychology. Like Today, what we'll be doing is talking about it from a depth psychological frame of reference and giving you information and giving the viewers information about how we see it and how we work within that in terms of responding to the person who is struggling with narcissism.
Speaker 1:Then you have the mic. Walk us through it.
Speaker 2:Yes. So, as I said previously when I was on the show, depth psychology is primarily, was primarily developed by Sigmund Freud, carl Jung and Alfred Adler, and it is the psychology that is concerned with what is happening at the unconscious level of the individual and to see well how the unconscious is informing behaviors that are problematic and impending normal social functioning. It also looks at how the unconscious also show up in the culture, right in politics and other spheres of life. So for today, what I want to do is just to talk about how depth psychology within the Jungian psychological frame is practiced. I think I mentioned this before, but I would just like to reiterate it again today In terms of the Jungian depth psychological frame.
Speaker 2:When we're looking at the Jungian psychotherapy practice, there are four stages with which the individual must go through, with the analyst or the therapist, and the first stage has to do with confession. As I said before, we cannot heal what we are avoiding, right, what we are putting aside. So you have to come to terms with the truth of what is happening and it is done in such a way that it's somewhat confessional. So following that is elucidation, where the therapist and the patient will be talking a little about. What does this mean for the person? Right to give them more context.
Speaker 2:Following that, you have the educational component, where the therapist is providing education and holding for the individual right to help them to understand and to interpret some of the things that they're struggling with. They may not have the appropriate assessment for it right or they're not dealing with it in an appropriate way, so the therapist is providing that education. What we call in clinical social work is called psychoeducation, providing education in a psychological sense. And the last part has to do with transformation, whereby those things that we're struggling with, parts of the personality that has been split off, it's been able to be reintegrated into the personality, and so that person now has transformed those issues right and they're moving towards wholeness, psychological wholeness. The trust of Jungian psychology has to do with individuation, and in order for us to get to that individuation place, there are certain things that we must go through, and one of the things that is critical for that process is to look at the shadow component of the personality.
Speaker 1:When you say certain things that we have to go through, yes. So if you were to give an example, what that would be.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the first part, as I said, is that confessional component right, where we're seeing things that we have been struggling with and we really didn't have the space and the safety and security to bring it forward and to be witnessed right and to process. So you have that and to be witnessed right and to process. So you have that. And as you're going through that initial stage, what we tend to find in the work is that there's parts of the personality that's been split off, cut off, projected, repressed, and that part goes into the shadow.
Speaker 2:The shadow is defined by Jung as those parts of ourselves that we don't want, right, that I said earlier. We project, we repress, we split off. We just cut it off from ourselves. We don't want it. We turn our backs towards that part of ourselves, but the thing about it is that it doesn't go away, it remains, and Young talks about the fact that the darker the person's shadow is, the denser the problem is right. So we want to make sure that the person is able to look at, to tolerate the things that they split off, right, and, when it's needed, for them to integrate those parts of themselves so that they can become more whole.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you mentioned four components so the four components has to do with confession, elucidation, education and transformation.
Speaker 1:Those parts and those four components are vital are vital.
Speaker 2:They are vital Now. There are various features, methods that we use in Jungian psychology, and one of it has to do with dream interpretation, and the second one that is vital is active imagination. Dream interpretation helps us to understand what is happening at the unconscious level, whereby we are able to bypass the ego and to see what is happening outside of the ego's defenses. Right, and the other thing in terms of active imagination. What we do with that is to help the individual to bring up various images and to have a dialogue with the image. Sometimes it may be a dream image, right, and we have a dialogue with the image. Sometimes it may be a dream image, right, and we have a dialogue with the image, whereby the ego is engaging with the image and there is a response that is occurring in a very contained way.
Speaker 1:So, andrew, I would like for you to give me some connection between death, psychology, shame and narcissistic personality, how those three are related.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 2:Well the way in which we look at narcissism. We look at it from the perspective that some type of wounding had occurred right, that some type of wounding had occurred right, and a lot of times what we find is that the wounding tend to come from a place of shame, right, where the individual is not able to tolerate what was said to them, given to them. Sometimes it may be something that they would have inherited from the culture or their family, right. So we're looking at narcissism within that sense to see, well, okay, what is it that this person is avoiding? What is it that this person is not able? What truth, what reality this person is not able to face because of it's intolerable right? They're not able to face it because it's full of shame. It's full as if the person's of no value and so they would not want to look at it at all.
Speaker 1:So, basically, so it's like the damage was done, but the person may not be able to accept or understand the gravity of that damage. Yes, and with deaf psychology, I'm trying to understand you yes, yes, yes, yes. And with deaf psychology. So it's like that method will help me, as the patient, understand the reason why I'm exhibiting those type of behaviors. Okay, am I right?
Speaker 2:Okay, so depth psychology is not going to help you to understand that in particular. Okay, because any type of I asked a question that way because I wanted you to you know, to explain it to the viewers for them to fully understand it.
Speaker 2:Yes, so okay, any type of psychology that provides psychological holding right for an individual to help them to face difficult things that they would have experienced is useful, right and helpful and provide healing. Depth. Psychology is no different from that. What we do in terms of looking at those areas of shame is that we look at it in a very gentle, cautious, patient way with the individual to help them to understand that well, sometimes shame could be good because it helps you to regulate yourself and it helps you to inform your moral compass. Shame in that sense is good.
Speaker 2:Toxic shame, on the other hand, is difficult and destructive in the sense that you are engaging in types of behaviors that avoid, you are avoiding any type of limitation, you are avoiding your humanity. You're avoiding a form of morality as well. So what we do is we try to get you to see well, it is okay to feel this way. Right, it may not be okay because you had the experience at the time, right in the past, but it is okay to feel that way in the moment and the point of it is to help the person to be more in touch with their humanity and their humanness.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, so narcissistic personality individual is somebody who tend to be selfish, somebody who tend not to show any empathy for others and somebody who pray on others for their own benefit. So if you were to deal with a client like that, how would you imply their psychology to help regulate that person's behavior?
Speaker 2:Okay, but first of all we need to look at the diagnosis for narcissism, and I'm going to turn to the DSM-5. Let's go to the Bible for personality disorders and all type of mental health issues. So, according to the DSM-5, a person is diagnosed with narcissistic personality if they meet five of these nine criteria. If they meet five of these nine criteria and the first one is grandiose self-importance, whereby the person exaggerates their achievements, their talents, and they expect to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements the second is preoccupied with fantasies. They have this fantasy about being successful, have ultimate power, they're brilliant, they're beautiful, they're the ideal thing for love, right? So it's fantasy in the sense that they're not grounded in reality. They're in a different place.
Speaker 1:But you have some people who have all those material components, but still exhibit narcissistic personality traits.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but what the DSM says is that these patterns to be clinically diagnosed, it has to provide certain types of distress and impairment in social, occupational and other important areas of functioning.
Speaker 2:So these different types of criteria that DSM is alluding to has to be present in different domains of life. So I just want to continue in terms of the criteria. So the third one is believe that they're special or unique and can only be understood or should be associated with people of a higher status and people who are in different types of position of power. They require excessive admiration, they have a sense of entitlement and they have interpersonal exploitative behaviors. Mm-hmm, they lack empathy and they're often envious of others and believe that people are envious of them. And finally, there's a show of arrogant behavior and attitude where they display a haughty, patronizing and condescending behavior towards other people. So five of these have to be present for you to diagnose this personality disorder. Now what we find is that a person who is bona fide narcissist would not come to therapy. They would not come. But someone who is struggling with a narcissistic wound may come to therapy, and I have patients who have had several narcissistic wounds.
Speaker 1:Sorry to cut you off, but the first category you just mentioned, you said that they will not come to therapy. So is there a reason why?
Speaker 2:Yes, the reason, as the DSM highlights, right, they believe that therapy is not for them, that they're too smart for therapy. And for those persons who do visit the therapist, oftentimes they do that out of trying to say that they are better than the therapist, they're more powerful than the therapist, that they want to show the therapist that they are wrong and they are right. Right, that the therapist was wrong and they are right. I have an example. I have an example from the culture about someone who's struggling with narcissistic personality and other pathological personalities. That went to therapy and it's a show that we were looking at for a long time Tony Soprano, what's the name? A long time, tony Soprano. What's the name of that show with Tony Soprano?
Speaker 1:I don't know the.
Speaker 2:Sopranos Okay, so it's the Sopranos, where Tony who was struggling with a mother complex. He had a severe mother complex to the point where anytime his mother showed disappointment in him he would go into a rage and he would take that out on other people and what we saw in the show. There were two instances, I believe, whereby his mother was ill and he was afraid that she was going to die and so he had no control over that process, right, and so he started to experience somewhat like of a fit kind of thing where one time he lost consciousness and just fell right. He went to the therapist for help dealing with his mother's situation and what he was trying to do was trying to buy over the therapist, like to take her over. So what you find with people who are narcissists who come to therapy they come there not necessarily to get well, in a way engage in a battle with the therapist.
Speaker 2:Thankfully, I have not had an experience so far in my practice of seven plus years. I've not had an experience whereby I'm engaging with someone who wants to do battle with me. In that sense. I've had other instances, but not that. You asked the question about how do we engage someone who presents with narcissistic traits?
Speaker 1:Others. Therefore, psychology engages somebody who exhibits those traits.
Speaker 2:Yes, we do that. By looking at the person's dreams to see what is coming up for them, we're helping the individual to integrate parts of their shadow. We're helping them to see their limitations right and to show humility and regard for self. Right, we're helping the person to have compassion for others, and we do that, again, in a very gentle way. There's some notes that I'd like to allude to in terms of that specifically.
Speaker 2:So, as I said, we want to engage the person in looking at their dreams and, using dream interpretation and active imagination, we are looking to help them to build genuine connection right in the work with us. We're looking at the transference consideration, like what is it that is being transferred in the moment with the patient and helping them to tolerate the tension that may come up right? One of the things about Jungian psychology is that he asks us to hold the tension of the opposite and also to be in that space of paradox where two or three things can be true, right, and you're holding both of them together without leading too far on one side or the other. All right, the important thing for the work is timing and patience. That's what's important for engaging with someone who has a narcissistic structure right, not necessarily the personality, but the structure.
Speaker 2:Yes.