Covert narcissism is a subtle presentation of narcissistic personality—it arrives wrapped in what looks like vulnerability. These clients do not, at first glance, appear narcissistic at all. This is not the standard-issue arrogant, braggadocious, all-about-me presentation. And yet, despite more subtle and passive-aggressive tendencies, they can have a deeply diminishing effect on the self-esteem of partners and family.

​

The clinical challenge is not to be misled. Their “super-suffering” presentation is rarely actual vulnerability. It is more often a survival mechanism: a constructed and harnessed victim identity that preserves a sense of specialness.

​

To meet this challenge, we are fortunate to have Wendy Behary with us for a full day of training. She is the clinician other therapists call upon when these cases stall.

​

This workshop offers a Schema therapy framework for seeing through that presentation and working with what lies beneath it. The model provides a clear conceptual map and practical skills to address long-standing maladaptive coping modes and heal the underlying insecurities of the covert narcissist. Treatment for partners focuses on shifting the core issues of self-sacrifice and subjugation.

​

Wendy is a gifted trainer who actively demonstrates, with specific case examples, how to create a safe space and respond with empathic confrontation to the typical roadblocks in this therapy. Permeating that “wall” is what this approach does so well.

​

Clinicians will learn to:

• Sturdy themselves and restore confidence in treating these tough cases

• Sustain leverage in treatment while confronting problematic behaviors and threats of quitting therapy

• Facilitate a process for identifying and healing the underlying insecurities of the covert narcissist—often sustained by early trauma and attachment ruptures more severe than those seen in grandiose presentations

• Help partners develop more adaptive, less self-diminished coping modes

 

Designed for clinicians who work with individuals and couples, this workshop emphasizes clinical sturdiness and practical skill. Participants will leave better able to recognize covert narcissism and to treat both the client and the partner.

 

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

​

• Conceptualize covert narcissism and formulate a treatment plan for individuals and couples

• Identify patterns and activating conditions associated with covert narcissism, including culturaland socioeconomic influences

• Link current problems to unmet emotional needs

• Help clients let go of self-defeating life patterns and begin to develop adaptive responses

• Address triggering conditions in the therapy relationship and fortify strategies for maintaining a sturdy, healthy adult mode

• Apply effective schema therapy strategies for covert narcissists and their partners, including quieting and converting inner critic modes, mode dialogues, imagery rescripting, and behavioral pattern breaking

​​

Wendy T. Behary, LCSW, is an internationally recognized psychotherapist, educator, and leading expert in Schema Therapy and the treatment of narcissism. With over 30 years of clinical experience, she is the founder and director of The Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and The Schema Therapy Institutes of NJ-NYC-DC.

 

A Founding Fellow of The Academy of Cognitive Therapy, Wendy spent decades collaborating closely with Schema Therapy pioneer Dr. Jeffrey Young. She served as President of the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST) and remains a prominent committee chair, shaping international training and certification standards.

 

Wendy is the author of the international bestseller Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed (now in its third edition and translated into 15+ languages), as well as numerous textbook chapters on treating personality disorders. As a master trainer and supervisor, she provides advanced education, clinical supervision, and specialized workshops to help practitioners worldwide master complex interpersonal dynamics and evidence-based Schema Therapy methodologies.

 

 

 

​

 

​​