11/14/2025
I just submitted this piece to Psychology Today, and whether or not it gets published, I know a few of you will be interested in it.
Most conversations about trauma stay at the surface level. People talk about coping skills, red flags, buzzwords, and lists. What rarely gets talked about is the part that actually changes people. The therapeutic relationship itself. The structure. The boundaries. The predictability. The fact that for many survivors of narcissistic abuse, therapy is the first place where connection is not weaponized, boundaries are not punishment, and someone is not benefitting from their confusion.
That experience is not an accessory to therapy. It is the treatment.
My paper gets into that.
How the therapist becomes a stable relational model.
How consistent boundaries start to rewire internal working models.
How predictability becomes safety, and safety becomes clarity.
How survivors of narcissistic abuse slowly start to trust themselves again after years of being trained not to.
If you are into relational trauma, attachment work, narcissistic abuse recovery, or the real process of healing, here it is:
The Therapeutic Role of Modeling Healthy Relationships and Long-Term Boundaries in Work With Narcissistic Abuse and Relational-Trauma Survivors (attached below)
If you read it, I would love to hear what stands out to you, especially from those who have lived it, studied it, or work with it.
I also want to be clear that this is not meant to minimize the importance of partners, friends, family, or anyone else who supports a survivor. Those relationships matter just as much, and in many cases even more. This piece is simply focused on the therapeutic relationship because that is the part I am examining here, not because it is the only relationship that shapes healing.
