Episode 33: Amy Marlow MaCoy
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: If they're the one who always had to hold a mirror up to the narcissist to show the narcissist what they wanted to see, then the client never got to be reflected.
Jessica Fowler: Welcome back to what your therapist is reading. I'm your host, Jessica Fowler. Today's episode is for the therapists out there. Today, we are speaking with Amy Marlow-MaCoy about her book, The Clinician's Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists: Pulling Back the Curtain on Manipulation, Gaslighting, and Emotional Abuse in Narcissistic Families.
Amy co-authored this book with Amy Kemp. Amy Marlo-MaCoy is a licensed professional counselor specializing in helping clients heal from narcissistic abuse. In addition to this book, she's also the author of The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook and she runs a mentorship program for therapists working with adult children of narcissists.
After today's episode, make sure you head on over to social media @therapybookspodcast to find out about our latest giveaway. If you are enjoying these episodes and would love to support the podcast, we'd love to have you leave a review wherever you're listening. And as always the information shared on this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
Welcome back to what your therapist is reading. On today's episode, we are speaking with Amy Marlow-MaCoy, MED, LPC about her book, The Clinician's Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists. Welcome, Amy.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Thank you, Jessica. I'm really excited to be here.
Jessica Fowler: Well, I'm excited to talk about this. I'm curious can we just start with you why you wrote a book on adult children of narcissists.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Yes. So, this is really a passion project, um, and something that came absolutely from the heart for both myself and my dear friend and coauthor, Amy Kemp. Uh, we're both clinicians who have done a lot of work in our practice with adult children of narcissists. And, you know, we've seen firsthand how much damage can be done when somebody with all of the best intentions and, you know, the best of plans gets into something that they don't realize is such a minefield. And so, we wanted to create something that would be accessible for clinicians to learn more about this really interesting and nuanced family dynamics so that the clients coming to them could be safe. And the clinicians could feel confident that they were, you know, knowing what they were doing and working appropriately with these amazingly resilient, wonderful clients.
Jessica Fowler: Amazing. It is. I will say, I told you in the beginning of the show that I felt like this book covered everything covered a lot of things covered a lot. And one of the things that I think was probably in the beginning, how you just mentioned kind of making sure that clinicians knew really what they were getting into. And you talk in the beginning about, you know, I forget exactly how you say it, but right, like you can't diagnose somebody who's family member basically, but also being aware that narcissism exists and how it impacts the client and kind of how to work with that. I was wondering if you can say a little bit about that.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Yeah, this is definitely one of the, the sticky points that comes up a lot when I talk with other clinicians, there's a lot of resistance in the clinical community to labeling someone as a narcissist. And a lot of fears and beliefs that narcissism and gaslighting are just buzzwords that are, you know, TikTok trends that everybody thinks everyone's a narcissist.
And so one of the things we really wanted to make sure we brought home in the book was that actually this this concept and the study of narcissistic traits and narcissistic personality types has been part of the psychological community since the very beginning, literally all the way back to ancient Greek and Roman myths about, you know, someone so enamored of themselves that they died staring at their own reflection in the mirror and that, you know, their self-absorption harmed others around them.
So, it's not, definitely not a new thing. Uh, and we do in the book specify, you know, use caution. You are not diagnosing someone. A lot of clients really resonate with the term narcissist. That doesn't mean that you are necessarily saying, yes, they have NPD. Um, but you can say what you're describing is in line with narcissistic personality traits.
So, we can recognize that there's, you know, a typical, uh, selection or, or group of. Personality traits and behaviors that we would see in this kind of relationship. And if you're seeing them, then yeah, you're probably working with someone that's high in narcissistic traits and here are some of the things that you need to know about working with them.
Jessica Fowler: You have like these examples of how to really respond to clients because you don't want to ignore what they're saying or continue basically similar behavior, um, but do it in a way that is allowing that to be said and to be heard.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Yeah, we do try to give as many examples as possible of, you know, here are some of the things we know that clients have heard that were really harmful. Here's another way you can say it like if you're not sure that somebody is accurately describing a loved one as narcissistic, you are going to alienate the client if you just say, oh, that's a TikTok thing that's just a social media trend like it's not, you know, it's really not common they're probably just, you know, whatever other hand wave you might give. Um, but you could instead say, so let's talk about the behaviors and the traits you see that make this term resonate for you. And let's look at, you know, we as clinicians, we have this certain way that we would identify or define these terms. It's not always the same as how people socially define them, but let's take a look at both definitions and see does this fit?
Even if it doesn't, you are having this difficulty with this person, they're causing you this pain, we can work with how can we help you feel safer and more protected from, you know, the things that are happening in this relationship, whether or not the name narcissist specifically fits. You're still here because you're in pain. We can help with that.
Jessica Fowler: Yeah, it's almost like that doesn't necessarily matter. If they are, they aren't, it's what the person is experiencing and how do you help them with it?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Right. Yeah. I, I, I do see clinicians sometimes get kind of hung up on the terminology and, uh, whether or not it's the appropriate term. And, and I know we don't want to see things misused and, you know, all of the trends that happen. Everyone's ADHD or ODD or OCD or, you know, whatever bipolar, but in the, in the interest of serving the client best, getting hung up on terminology is not where it's at. It's about what is the actual need the client is bringing in, the pain that they're experiencing in the relationship. And for some clients, it's really important to have a name for it because that really feels validating and meaningful and it gives shape to something they've been struggling with. And for others, it's, it's not that big a deal. But either way, as long as you are really validating the concerns that are bringing the client and that is the most important thing by far. And when we get hung up on terminology, we sometimes forget about that piece to the detriment of the therapeutic relationship.
Jessica Fowler: Absolutely. So, we kind of just jumped right in, but for our listeners out there that maybe don't fully know what narcissism is, can you give a little bit of a definition?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Sure. Um, so we typically talk about narcissistic abuse or narcissism as a collection of personality traits and behaviors that cause harm to others around them due to the self-absorption, lack of insight. Uh, willingness to use and manipulate others for their own gain and habit of pulling people in so that you can drain energy from them to prop yourself up. So narcissistic abuse is a relationship pattern in which those traits are present. One person is typically the center of the relationship and everything else revolves around them and they gather people in who will support and prop them up by continuing to reinforce their beliefs that they deserve the best of the best, that they are the best of the best, and that will sublimate their needs in favor of the narcissistic individual needs.
Jessica Fowler: So when someone opens up your book, what are they getting?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: What are they not getting? Um, they're getting a lot of definitions. They're getting a lot of explanations of how different behaviors and Family dynamics and relationship expectations work. They're getting a lot of case examples where they can see how this plays out with, you know, based on real clients, how we might see this show up in the room. They are getting a lot of great invitations to go inward and just notice their own responses to these things and practice their own caring for their young selves or parts of the therapist reader who might have experienced these kinds of relationships. Um, and they're getting a lot of handouts in the back and examples of how you might take these principles and then apply them in your practice with your clients actually in the room.
Jessica Fowler: I said to you, um, earlier that, that there's so much in this book. There's a lot of, a lot of the topics I couldn't think of another topic to add to the book. Um, so I thought that that was really useful and you do have a lot of great case examples and a lot of resources. The end when I was reading the book and looking how long the book was, and then I stopped and I was like, oh, the rest of this is resources. There was a lot of resources in there. One of the areas that I appreciated, well, one was the reflection questions, but the part on counter transference, can you share a little bit about that?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Yes. Um, counter transference, it gets such a bad rap in the psychological community, but I think it's actually a wonderful messenger because it lets us know like what is happening inside of us as we're in the room with the client. And because healing of relational trauma has to occur in the context of a healthy relationship, like the clinician is 50 percent of the therapeutic relationship. So, we have to know, like really know deeply in our bones, what we are bringing in, what responses get triggered in us, how we can be caring for ourselves, so that what we're bringing in the room is as healthy and healed and protected and cared for as possible. And it's also really demonstrating and modeling for the client, like caring for yourself as a way of life, like being kind and loving to your wounded parts as a way of life. It's not just bubble baths and, you know, eating a special treat. It's really making sure that you are prioritizing. Oh, I'm noticing this, you know, young part of myself that really cringed whenever my person would yell that I would feel really, you know, ashamed and scared. And when this client gets angry, I feel a little bit of that. I can pause a moment and let that little part know that like grown up me is here and we'll be okay. And it's all right. If the client yells. And I can also reflect to them that when they yell, it can be scary. And is that what they're looking for? Is that the response they hope to get? How do people react to it? Is it getting them what they want? And it can just open up so much really rich discussion and reflect the client in a way that they were not reflected growing up.
If they're the one who always had to hold a mirror up to the narcissist to show the narcissist what they wanted to see, then the client never got to be reflected. So, this is an opportunity for them to get some of what they didn't get in their childhood that kind of requires us to take care of ourselves in order to be able to do it.
Jessica Fowler: I liked that you brought in the parts work because not everyone is trained in parts and parts is I love parts. So, I thought it was such a good reflection and it's such a good example of that. We have to know our own stuff, right? Yes. Like if we're getting triggered and we're like, oh no, I'm not going to work with that person. It's like, oh wait, is there something going on with me that I have to tend to? Okay. Right. In this example, maybe there is something to that has, you know, that was just highlighted for you that still needs some healing.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Yeah. And it's okay if that's the case, it's absolutely okay to say I'm not ready to work with this person, because what's been triggered in me is going to need time and attention that I don't have immediately to give, or I can't do that while working with this client. I need to carve out more time to care for this. So, I'm going to refer them to someone else. It is such a, a gift of compassion and care both inwardly and outwardly to really know, okay, I can't be what this client needs. I can't provide the safest, most welcoming space for them.
If I'm feeling guarded and protective. So that means I need to give them information for someone else who may have more capacity because that's what they need and I'm not able to provide it right now.
Jessica Fowler: Such a great insight for the people who are not therapists listening to things that therapists have to think about.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Yes, yes. We really, really do want you to get the best care, whether it's with us or with someone else. So, if we tell you we're not right for you. I promise it's not that we just don't want to work with you. It's that we know we something's going on that that would cause us to not be able to give you the best care and you should be getting the best care.
Jessica Fowler: Absolutely.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: You know, don't don't ever take it personally if you get a referral out. That just means your therapist is trying to make sure you get what you need.
Jessica Fowler: Absolutely. What are one or two takeaways you would like your readers to walk away with?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Probably the biggest one is to know just how much the narcissistic family of origin, like relationship blueprint, carries over to relationships outside the family.
So, if you grow up in a narcissistic family, what you learn is that whoever the narcissist person in the family is, their needs matter. There's room for them, them to have emotions, to have wants and needs and preferences and desires, but there's not really room for anyone else to. So, it's very easy to take that belief that you aren't supposed to take up space in a relationship and carry that over into friendships or dating relationships or partnerships. Um, which is part of why so many abuse victims end up repeating the cycle of abuse in other relationships. It's not that they want it, but it's familiar. And sometimes you don't know that you're swimming in water if you're a fish who's just so used to it, they don't notice the water. You have to actually become aware of it.
And then the second piece that comes with that, is that if you become aware that this is happening, that there's a narcissistic dynamic in your relationship, that this is abusive, you can't unsee it. So, your clients can't go back. And I think a lot of them have an awareness of that, even if it's very subtle in the back of their mind, that can cause them to resist accepting, you know, who their person really is because they know they can't go back and something has to change, even if it's just internal, but they're never going to be able to see that person the same way. And that's hard. There's a lot of grief attached to that. So, it's much more nuanced and layered than it may appear on the outside and clinicians need to just like, know that you are picking at a knot. That you're not going to do the whole gordian slice through it thing. You have to pick all of the loops out and it's going to take some time.
Jessica Fowler: Well, you even say that in the book. This isn't short term therapy, right?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Right.
Jessica Fowler: This is long term therapy.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Yeah. You're not going to do this in your eight EAP sessions.
Jessica Fowler: Not going to happen. Anything else you want to share with the listeners?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Amy and I wrote this book from our hearts and we really want it to be a resource for clinicians to help them feel more grounded and confident in working with these clients and for clients to have more safe, really knowing, savvy clinicians to work with because there aren't enough who really truly understand narcissism and those good intentions can still cause harm if you just don't know what you're getting into. So, you know, our hope is that this book will lead to more people who do know what they're getting into and more clients who are able to get what they need.
Jessica Fowler: Well, it is a good resource in that way, I would say.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Thank you.
Jessica Fowler: Where can our listeners connect with you?
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Uh, the best place to connect with me would be through my website, the Courageous Heart Institute. Um, I run a therapist mentorship program there for anyone who wants to really deepen and expand their knowledge of working with adult children or other survivors of narcissistic abuse. And those who really are ready to dig into some of their person of the therapist stuff as they are learning. So, all of that information is on my website and you can all also follow me on Facebook and Instagram.
Jessica Fowler: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on today.
Amy Marlow-MaCoy: Thank you, Jessica.
Jessica Fowler: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of what your therapist is reading.
Make sure you head on over to the website or social media to find out about the latest tip away. Transcribed The information provided in this program is for educational and informational purposes only, and although I'm a social worker licensed in the state of New York, this program is not intended to provide mental health treatment and does not constitute a patient therapist relationship.
About the author
Amy Marlow-MaCoy is a licensed professional counselor specializing in helping clients heal from narcissistic abuse. She is the author of The Clinician's Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists (with Amy Kempe) and The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook. Amy runs a mentorship program for therapists working with adult children of narcissists.