How "therapy-speak" makes us narcissists
This is a slight departure from the regular topic but I have a feeling that as I flush these ideas out there will be a connection. Also, I apologize for the sensationalist heading. Let me qualify.
First, I am careful to call anyone a “narcissist” outright. We all have personalities with complex profiles including, to some degree or another, the tendency towards narcissism, the self-centred entitlement that arises from an inability to separate one’s self from external objects. What my heading should say is, “how ‘therapy speak’ brings out our narcissism”. But that’s less interesting.
Secondly, I should explain what I mean by ‘therapy-speak’. The layperson, in the understandable attempt to sort out their mental health has been paying attention to self-help books and influencers for the last 30 years and has acquired some technical language. Books, blogposts, and podcasts have simplified or even altered the definitions of clinical terms in order to better educate the masses about their psychology. The idea is that once we know what gaslighting is, or OCD we will be able to identify it real life and better cope. It shouldn’t be controversial to point out that this approach at best is not working and most likely is having the opposite effect. Therapists themselves fall down this trap of learning about the psych-term du jour and “teaching it” to their patients. The therapist feels like they need to deliver information that is worth the money they are being paid, so they inform the patient about DSM diagnoses and newly coined phenomena from recent research (although they likely did not read the actual research, instead they read the watered down article in Vox that cited it.) Now they equip their patients with the knowledge of exactly when they have PTSD or exactly how to enforce boundaries with their narcissist partner, or what precisely it means to “do the work”. Meanwhile these patients, while bolstered by their new education, eventually fall back into their troubles since none of the advice actually worked which means they probably did it wrong which means they need more therapy. This is because they are ignoring the deeper internal causes of their suffering, the unconscious blocks and pressures that keep them from acting in a way that they actually want to. They keep their focus on other people’s faults rather what’s inside. And what’s inside might be narcissism.
One of the most common therapy-speak tools is the focus and even obsession with ‘needs’. We take the brilliant work of an Abraham Maslow and assume that all mental illness boils down to simply not having one’s needs met. I’m messed up because my needs weren’t met when I was a kid. I want out of this marriage because my spouse doesn’t meet my needs. Life is awful because nobody cares about my needs.
To be clear, there are definitely human needs, both physical and psychological. Maslow was not wrong. We need safety. We need love. But when we slow down the conversation about ‘needs’ we often hear something different. Usually, when someone is demanding that their needs be met, the examples they use are actually ‘wants’. Needs are general. Wants are specific. I need safety but I want you to stay with me until I fall asleep so that I feel safe. I don’t need you to stay with me, I’ll survive without you, but I’d prefer it. Why do constantly express our preferences and desires and needs?
Strategically, framing our desires as needs at least seems like it will increase the likelihood of compliance. I need you to pick me up is more urgent and serious than I would prefer not to walk home. Expressing needs is almost equivalent to making a demand and therapy-speak has made it polite to do so, or at least not rude. This of course sets us up for failure as we feel like we are innocently expressing our natural, human emotional needs while our target is highly likely to feel manipulated, forced, or bossed around. Now, if they fail to meet your ‘need’ it’s as if they are starving you or hurting you on purpose when in reality they might be asserting their own ‘need’ for independence by not allowing you to boss them around anymore.
Needs are to desires as laws are to ethics. Our needs should be the absolute bare minimum requirement of expectation. Thou shalt not kill. But desire speaks to something greater and higher than that minimum. Love thy neighbour. If we make every preference the law then it almost guarantees that others will not comply. If the law said we had to be nice to everyone then we would all be in prison eventually. A good idea leads to tyranny fairly quickly. Elevating all of your standards to the category of ‘needs’ risks emotional tyranny in your relationships.
Another reason why we favour needs over desires these days is because of our cultural shift towards profanitizing desire. In the Western world we are incredibly fortunate, privileged and one of the last things we want to be seen as is selfish. We live in a strange straddling of hyper-individualism and self-centredness in practice but a rhetorical veneration of the collective. We are told to be ourselves and stick up for ourselves but also to devote our care and attention to collective, global problems. It’s difficult to balance these social mores. It seems we accomplish this by rebranding our desire as needs, while we make public statements and actions to signal our allegiance to the group. Wanting something is selfish, capitalistic, and a 21st century sin. Getting our needs met is ‘self-care’, which is permissible in the Church of modernity.
So what does this have to do with being a narcissist? Wouldn’t a narcissist be overly focused on their desires? The trick is that our narcissistic side is not just selfish but entitled. Expressing a request as a desire doesn’t give it enough authority to force someone to comply. Narcissists know very well what it is like to need other people but they are not so familiar with loving and desiring someone deeply. Our society tells us to get our needs met but often that results in a disproportionate focus on an imbalanced and self-centered way of seeing other people. They are means to your end. Desire sounds more selfish and at times it probably is, but often desire leads us to negotiate, collaborate and bond with others. Needs are often too rigid to pull this off. Desires can more easily complement each other ie. my desire to be important matches your desire to be helped.
Our desires define us. Needs are general and therefore don’t distinguish us from anyone else which is not to say they aren’t important. Desires are unique and individual and should be expressed as such. Paradoxically, by moving my language to desire, want, and preference instead of need, I am more accurately describing myself and I am offering a less controlling, more authentic representation of myself to the world.
Be ware of focusing on what you ‘need’ from other people. It might restrict the connection and intimacy in your relationship. Focusing on needs might be bringing out a narcissistic sense of entitlement that will keep you feeling alienated from others and shallow in your relationships. Realizing that what you call needs are actually desires opens you up to more vulnerability and risk but also opportunity to experience love more deeply and mutually beneficial.
Now, for those of you who tune in for advice about managing public shame. Keep this message in mind when you are trying to recover in your relationships. Hopefully there are a few people who are supporting you through this difficult time but be careful not to put your emotional ‘needs’ on their shoulders at all times. Remember that they are humans with their own struggles as well, and if you are capable you would benefit from asking them about what’s going on in their lives from time to time. You do not want to turn everything conversation with you into a mounting session about how you were fired unjustly, or dumped, or bullied online. Sometimes it will benefit to talk about it, for sure, but allowing yourself to experience love and desire is key to your recovery and you do not want to squish it with your so-called needs.