There is a new pop psychology term on the internet called “narcissistic victim syndrome.” This is the idea that we should have a special diagnosis called narcissistic victim syndrome (NVS) for clients who believe that they were psychologically damaged by their relationship with an abusive narcissist.

However, when I did an internet search, I found that this concept has not been researched or validated and is mainly being used by non-mental health professionals who claim to successfully treat it.

I have addressed my concerns about NVS in my previous post, “Why Isn’t Narcissistic Victim Syndrome a Real Diagnosis?” (January 11, 2024).

In this post, I will be looking at the concept of narcissistic victim syndrome through the lens of Gestalt therapy.

Gestalt therapy is a present-centered, lively psychotherapeutic approach that was developed in the 1950s by Frederick S. Perls (1893-1970) and his wife Laura Perls (1905-1990), two former psychoanalysts who fled Germany during WWII. Fritz and Laura Perls sought to create a new type of psychotherapy that did not depend on Sigmund Freud’s theories or psychoanalytic methods.

Gestalt therapy focuses on seeing the client as a whole person with a body and not just a mind. Rather than focus on the unconscious, it is designed to foster self-awareness, explore the impact of the present moment on the individual, and develop spontaneous experiments to........

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