What Would Jung Say? A Psychoanalytic Approach to NPD

Hello readers! As promised in the last post, we will spend some time discussing how Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is viewed and can be applied clinically. It is important that we know more about what to expect based on the treatment approach that we may decide to take. For this post, we will focus on the clinical application based on Carl Jung’s analytical psychology. “Jung emphasizes that all individuals face a fundamental personal task: finding unity in the self” (Cervone & Pervin, 2023, p. 110). For individuals suffering from NPD, there has been an inability to find unity in self. NPD involves an over-identification in their persona and a disconnect from self that is required to maintain unity within. This structural disturbance presents as ego inflation, which masks underlying shame and creates a dependency on external validation from others.

From the outside looking in, the mask may appear authentic but there is a chronic sense of emptiness there and a fragile identity beneath the pervasive sense of grandiosity. Jung placed an emphasis on a psychic process that was outside of the conscious awareness (Cervone & Pervin, 2023). For NPD, this can help to explain the lack of self awareness, lack of empathy, and struggles when not receiving the needed admiration. Unlike some theories that focused on early childhood development, Jung viewed development as a lifelong process. For the individual with NPD, there has been a halted development process that continues to seek validation for the ego. Relationships are also sought that will feed this halted process, as the desire is for relationships that will affirm and not relationships that are truly authentic. While some of these characteristics may be true for some people at different times in their life, for someone with NPD the chronic emptiness, fragile self-esteem and fragile identity is chronic leading to a pathological concern.

Despite Jung’s view on personality development as being lifelong, due to behaviors that can be difficult to get people to acknowledge within themselves, NPD can be extremely difficult to treat (Strathford, 2025). Due to this, I would not encourage this approach if seeking treatment. Do not let this discourage you though, there is hope. Read forward to the next post which focuses on an alternative approach from a phenomenological perspective.

Keep This in Mind: Healing narcissistic wounds may begin by asking: What parts of myself have I hidden to be admired, rather than truly known?

References:

Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2023). Personality: Theory and research (15th ed.). Wiley.

Stratford, N. (2025). DSM-5-TR diagnostic practical handbook. Nicholas Strathford.