Welcome! Let's Talk NPD.

Hello everyone! My name is Lacee Lovely and I work as a Licensed Professional Counselor - Supervisor (LPC-S). I’ve been in the counseling field for the past 11 yrs, having received my MS in Mental Health Counseling in 2014. I am currently a Clinical Psychology PhD student looking to expand my knowledge in order to better help individuals like you, the reader. I have a private practice where I provide counseling, supervise student interns and supervise associate level clinicians. It may sound like I already have a lot on my plate, but I want to assure you that I plan to make regular updates and welcome this connection as a value added to both myself and the reader. With my background in mental health and seeing an uptick in the need for a better understanding of personality disorders in our society, I decided that now is the time to start this blog. Along with the blog, I plan to link articles on occasion for you to do more reading outside of my posts.

The desire for understanding that I see across social media, combined with my passion for supporting members of my community who often lack access to qualified providers, has inspired me to attempt to meet individuals in this form. Sharing what I have learned about personality disorders, specifically Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the goal of this blog. As I write, you may see the acronym NPD utilized, it is simply a shorthand for Narcissistic Personality Disorder and may be used interchangeably.

While I am a mental health provider, I do want to remind you that I am not able to offer medical or mental health services on this platform. If you are ever in an emergency and need immediate help, please call 911 or reach out to someone close to you that is available to help. Now that we have the logistics out the way, let’s jump right in. I want to start by sharing the clinical definition for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The American Psychiatric Association (2022) tells us that NPD "is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy" (p. 733). Just seeing that short definition that was offered would make many believe that there are a great deal of people that fall in that category. While we will not go into deep detail in this introduction, I will tell you that that is not the case. Due to the limited knowledge of what NPD is and the lack of trust the public sometimes has with healthcare providers in general, it can be difficult for people to decide on the treatment route to addressing symptoms. Weinberg (2024) has found that destigmatizing treatment and destigmatizing narcissism can lead to effectively addressing the disorder. It is my hope that this blog will help with that.

I hope that you will come back to visit my blog in order to find out more. I am excited to be here, and eager to share my knowledge and connect!

Keep This in Mind: Narcissistic Personality Disorder is more complex and less common than social media suggests, true understanding requires more than a label.

References:

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787

Weinberg, I. (2024). Building hope for treatment of narcissistic personality disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 80(4), 721–732. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23598