Why "Narcissistic Abuse" Is the Wrong Term (And What to Say Instead)

On this episode of Hey Tabi!, the podcast where we talk about the hard things, out loud, with our actual lips, we're taking on the topic of "narcissistic abuse." Is "narcissistic abuse" the right term to describe harmful relationship dynamics, or does it oversimplify a much deeper issue? In this episode, we break down why the phrase “narcissistic abuse” may be misleading and how it can perpetuate stigma. We’ll explore the research behind “narcissistic abuse syndrome,” why some people default to calling abusers “narcissists,” and how pop psychology has shaped the conversation. Most importantly, we’ll discuss alternative terms that focus on survivors’ experiences and pave the way for both justice and healing. Whether you’re a survivor, therapist, or just curious about this trending topic, this episode will challenge your perspective and provide deeper insight into abuse dynamics.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Hey Tabi! Podcast
• 0:47 What is "Narcissistic Abuse"?
• 1:53 The Problem with the Term "Narcissistic Abuse"
• 2:43 The Importance of Precise Language in Abuse Cases
• 4:36 Narcissism vs. Coercive Control
• 11:16 Legal Implications and Advocacy
• 17:29 Conclusion

Transcript

Hey Tabi Episode 1

Tabitha Westbrook:
Welcome to Hey Tabi!, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off-limits here, and we are not “take-two-verses-and-call-me-in-the-morning.”

I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and wellbeing. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope.

Now let's get going.

So welcome to the Hey Tabi! podcast. I'm super excited that you are joining me today. We are going to talk about: What is narcissistic abuse? Why is that the wrong term? And what should we say instead? I know this is a topic that is important to a lot of people where we have a lot of different feelings and opinions.

I want to start by saying a little bit about who I am in case you have never seen me before. And I am brand new to you. My name is Tabitha Westbrook. I am a licensed therapist. I'm actually an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control. I teach faith-based domestic abuse advocacy. It is a big part of what our practice does and we help people heal. So I'm really well-versed in abuse dynamics. I think one of the things that makes me a little interesting in this space is the advocacy piece because I'm looking at it both as a therapist who helps people heal and as an advocate who helps people change the world. Advocacy is meant to help people empower themselves, encourage them, educate them, and help things change. So part of that is actually the education piece. 

Today, I am going to be talking about why the term "narcissistic abuse" is problematic and why it really doesn't paint the right picture for us. We need something that actually says the things that are helpful.

So why is this an important topic? Well, it's becoming more talked about, which I think is fantastic. There have been movies that have come out with a little controversy, but there are also lots of people talking about it now. There is much more awareness than in the past, and I am all for that. But that makes language even more important and that is something that we are going to touch on here. What I am not doing is dismissing your experience if you're a survivor. What I'm helping you do, though, is language it better so people can understand it, and also so that you can get the help you need for real. Because when we don't use precise language, it can really get tricky for people, especially if you have to go to court. And we know that 90 percent of abuse victims get further abused after divorce and separation through the court system. So it really matters what you say in court and the way that you present.

This is a problematic term for a few different reasons. One is narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health diagnosis, and abusers may or may not meet that criteria. I know that feels a little tricky, like how could they not? They're all about themselves. I'll tell you, just as someone who has worked in this industry for a while now, not all narcissistic people are abusers. And I know that is super trippy if this is your first time hearing that, but it's a true statement. They aren't. They are not all abusers and yes, they are for themselves, but they're not controlling someone else. We're going to talk about the dynamics of abuse and what makes someone abusive, to help you out with that and to help you understand why there's a difference. 

That piece of it is a bit tricky because, you know, if someone doesn't go get that mental health diagnosis and then you go to court or you are talking in mediation or anything else, you don't have documentation to stand on to say, "Oh, this is what this person is doing." Also, narcissistic behaviors aren't necessarily illegal. Now, are they a good idea? No, of course not, but they aren't necessarily illegal, and that is something to keep in mind. We need to remember that this is going to go before family court, civil court, or criminal court in various jurisdictions, sometimes, and having adequate language around it really helps us out there.

Narcissism seems to be also used literally everywhere these days. Literally, everyone’s a narcissist. If you watch certain social media sites with maybe short-form videos, you are going to see this term all over the place. There's a reason for that. One of the reasons is keywords research. So there are a lot of people using it and so it helps you get found. But it has become a bit of a catch-all and it is starting to be meaningless and that’s definitely not what a survivor of abuse needs. A survivor of abuse needs deep meaning. They need people to understand what they're talking about and so it becoming watered down and too prolifically used is a big issue for this. 

It also really oversimplifies abuse dynamics. So what we favor as advocates is power and control, and that really is the heart of abuse. If you are familiar with the Duluth model, you can go look at the power and control wheel. It is excellent at laying out what abuse really is. If you notice the hub of that wheel, the very center is that power and control dynamic. A narcissist absolutely wants you to worship the ground they walk on, they may use gaslighting and things like that, but they're not going to try to take your personhood. An abuser will. They will try to take your personhood because it is about power and control. 

To an abusive individual, you are no different than a sofa. Literally. You’re a couch that can talk and make food and do other things. That is really sad, but also really what delineates abuse dynamics. When you look at the power and control structure, it is much more insidious than narcissism.

For those of us where faith guides our steps. I am a person where that is a true statement. That really is wickedness. I know that's a heavy word to use, and we don't like to use terms like evil or wicked oftentimes when it relates to a person, I get that. However, when we look at it, it is the same idea, the same heart that Satan had when he said, "I will sit on the throne and be like the Most High." What he was saying is, I want to be God, and for all the survivors that I work with, there is a lot of talk about did we marry the same person, and yeah, I would say that there to me is evidence of the spiritual nature of it, and that they all sound the same. The playbook is roughly the same, and that tells me it is more than just something that can be a mental health diagnosis or a personality disorder. So when we pull away from that particular clinical type of language, we are able to get more precise into that coercive control dynamic.

Now, you might be thinking, well, what about narcissistic abuse syndrome? Somebody just decided to research like the dynamics of abuse and what happens to people when they get abused and call it a syndrome. What I will tell you is that it is complex post-traumatic stress disorder for a lot of people, or it causes generalized anxiety disorder. If you took the DSM, stripped it down to a trauma-focused lens, we'd have a pamphlet. I don't know that there is a need for another type of disorder. Maybe a few more criteria added to post-traumatic stress disorder, maybe actually putting complex post-traumatic stress disorder in the DSM, which is the manual that we use to diagnose mental health stuff, would be really helpful. But adding a whole “narcissistic abuse syndrome” diagnosis, I don't know that that's super helpful. And it's definitely not helpful when a victim goes into court to work with child custody or to face their abuser or to try to get financial support. It's not going to be meaningful at all to the criminal justice system, to the family court system, or to the civil court system, because those are not words that they use. 

Also, the research really does lack consensus on that. It's one of the reasons that we do not see it more prolifically discussed or talked about in the general population. What we do see is the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis or the CPTSD diagnosis, generally speaking. That tells me that it's not precise enough to really help us out anyway. 

While, I absolutely support studying the aftermath of abuse because it is so incredibly harmful to people, not just to your emotional state, which also, you know, for people who are like, "Well, it was just emotional abuse. It didn't really get physical." Last time I checked our emotions absolutely play out in our bodies and our brain is in our bodies. That is something that is just really important to remember. Our bodies do keep the score and abuse has a horrific impact on them, whether or not someone is hit or sexually assaulted. Abuse still really, really does a number on people and physically does a number on people. I've worked with a ton of survivors that have autoimmune disorders or all kinds of physical issues because of the abuse they have endured. 

I think we really want to take a lot of the research that's already existing and use that to help us understand what this already is, so we don't need anything additional. We don't want to pathologize a survivor of abuse. It's certainly not your fault that you were abused. I have yet to meet anybody that says, "Hi, I'd really like to get into an abusive relationship or be in an abusive home. Sounds like fun." Nobody says that. Nobody ever says that. If you do, then we have other things to talk about. I'm a little worried about you, honestly. So call me, right? Like that's an issue, but for this, we don't want to pathologize a survivor either. 

Narcissistic abuse syndrome really focuses on what happened to the survivor versus the actions of the abuser. That’s already the problem, right? A lot of times survivors are the ones that bear the biggest burden of finding new churches, finding new communities, finding different families, right? Because you get ostracized by the abuser’s family, maybe even by your own family. And it's a terrible, terrible thing. Pathologizing, even inadvertently, a survivor is not very helpful, and it’s also really not going to lead to good things.

Also, we want to be mindful that in the advocacy space from the legal perspective, using the term “coercive control” is much more accurate. There is a ton of research around it. You can read folks like Evan Stark and Emma Katz. They are contemporaries that we have. Evan Stark just passed away recently, but you can read their research and it has a ton of information in there about what coercive control looks like, how it harms children, how it harms the spouse, the partner, all of those things. It is a research-backed term, first of all, with an outcome, aftermath, and measurable, tangible things. It has legal precedent. While not enough states yet have coercive control language in their laws, there are a few that do. In those states where you have coercive control language, that is something that can be brought into court.

If a victim comes into court and says, "They're just a narcissist, they're a covert narc," whatever, no one listens. Honestly, I will tell you that from working with folks in this space, literally the courts end up siding against the non-abusive individual because of that kind of thing. They're going to say, "Well, you're making allegations about a mental health diagnosis that's not here. You sound like you're high conflict. You sound like you are just really mad. So, you're not credible." Why would you sacrifice your credibility for a term? I just don't think that's helpful. What we really favor is describing the behavior that's happening and the impact to you and to the children if there are children.

Again, with legal precedent of coercive control, you actually have much more power when you walk into a legal situation. That is really important. So while I understand wanting to have shorthand and absolutely wanting to use narcissism because it feels very much that way and it may be there, I'm not saying that it's not, I'm just saying it’s not the helpful term for abuse. I think that using the more precise domestic abuse and coercive control with the heavy emphasis on coercive control is really going to net us better results, both in helping people heal and helping the system itself that they have to walk into often understand what is going on. That is a really, really important thing. When we don't use the right terminology, when we call something by something that's a bit more colloquial or just gets good clicks, and we walk into a situation where we really need precise language, like the legal system, then we lose. Narcissism is such a band-aid term for a bullet wound, honestly.

The people that I have walked with who have been victims of coercive control, it upends who you are because the goal of coercively controlling you is to take your personhood. It is inviting you into slavery. Dr. Debra Wingfield calls it a captivity crime. If you have not read some of her work, I strongly encourage that as well. If you think of it like a funnel, and this is a diagram Dr. Debra uses, the funnel is wide at the top. Maybe you are being love-bombed and it's hitting a need that you have, right? We all have a need to be loved and to belong, and we all want to have someone pursue us. We all want to be loved. When that is something lacking in our life, or we just need because we're human, and someone who is really manipulative senses that and starts giving you those things, over time that funnel narrows. What was sweet, like, "Oh, they want my location. They just want to know where I'm at to keep me safe," right? "Just in case something were to happen." Oh, wait, now I'm being timed at the grocery store. "Oh, you were there a bit long. I just want to make sure you're okay," right? Until eventually, that funnel becomes so narrow that you don't know who you are anymore. That is far more insidious than narcissism. 

Coercive control takes who you are as a person, someone who is made in the image and likeness of the living God, which means you are precious, and you have worth and value. It tells you that you are nothing. That you are there to please them. If you are a decent-hearted person, or if you are someone who genuinely loves God, you might believe that. Before you know it, that funnel has narrowed to the point that who you actually are has been choked out. I've sat across from so many people, women in particular, who tell me, "I don't know who I am anymore. I've lost her." Part of our job in healing is to help her become found again. Narcissism is a term that is just too small for the ugliness and wickedness that coercive control actually is. It doesn't help us describe it and it doesn't meet the legal definition that we need.

Also, it leads sometimes for survivors to have what a lot of our survivors call “hopium.” "Oh, if it's just a mental health thing, then they can get counseling and change." That is not how it works with abusers. Although some can and do change, the likelihood is small and no amount of counseling will be effective if the abuser cannot take accountability for their actions. So I hope this helps explain why narcissistic abuse is the wrong term and that we would much rather use coercive control. 

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I know not everybody will agree, and that's okay. I'm okay with disagreement, but I would love to see down in the comments, tell me what you think. Tell me a little bit about why you favor, if you do favor narcissistic abuse, why do you favor that? Why do you think it's a helpful term? Let's keep this conversation going. Thanks for hanging out with me and let's see you next week here for another episode of Hey Tabi!.

Thanks for joining me for today's episode of Hey Tabi!. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show, and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to TabithaWestbrook.com forward slash Hey Tabi, that's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I, and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.