The authors are two doctors who “worked in the trenches”—rooms where hopeful patients and hopeful doctors spent an hour a session together. Like many therapists, the authors struggled with difficult, treatment-resistant patients. This book puts forward a new perspective on working with such a population. The Narcissistic Family does not introduce a new diagnostic category, but offers a common thread for people who, depending on the period, can receive different diagnoses of personality disorders (borderline, anxious, narcissistic, paranoid). , dependent) or clinical syndromes and disorders (dissociative identity disorder, dysthymia, PTSD). The book posits a broader reason for the familiar grouping of symptoms previously applied only in the context of the model of adult children of alcoholics. The narcissistic family model integrates parenting systems with various forms of dysfunctional parenting based on common features, regardless of the presence or absence of abuse or abuse. Deeply traumatized patients have not necessarily experienced bullying or violence, and their stories are not always dramatic - this is typical for people from narcissistic families , where dysfunction spans many areas while remaining hidden.