Can Psychedelics Heal A Narcissist?

When it comes to Cluster B personality disorders, DBT therapy is known as an effective treatment for borderline personality disorder. Furthermore, as the borderline ages, their dysregulation and other symptoms tend to reduce, often leading to a somewhat more stable second half of life.

The narcissist, on the other hand, tends to repeat the same idealise-devalue-discard cycle over and over, as they spiral toward worsening symptoms as they age. Most narcissists end life in a schizoid state. Either they lose their power to garner narcissistic supply, or they grow cynical as they detach from society and sink into a paranoid life of isolation and emptiness while dreaming of their heyday.

For narcissists staring down the barrel of such a future, or for loved ones of narcissists who simply wish to see the narcissist change for the better, a question of possible treatments will always arise. The popular understanding is that there is no cure for narcissistic personality disorder besides surface-level behavioural changes. As the narcissist loses their looks and power in old age, their best-case scenario may be to begrudgingly alter their behaviour to try to keep certain people in their life.

But is there hope for change to be more than just superficial? Are there more potent treatments for narcissism than just talk therapy and wishful thinking?

The Wild Universe Of Psychedelics

Borderlines tend to have the potential for positive growth because their trauma came later in life, and so their True Self had the chance to develop. While borderlines are flooded by emotions to the point of insanity, their advantage over narcissists is that they at least have emotions to work with.

If your trousers are too short, you cannot make them longer. But if they are too long, you can trim them down to size. So it is with borderlines and narcissists. Borderlines can learn to regulate and manage their emotions. Narcissists, on the other hand, have little to work with even if they wanted to change. Their trauma came much earlier in life, resulting in a complete break with the True Self, leaving them with very little development. The narcissist therefore lacks the depth to develop satisfying authentic relationships. Their True Self is a barren wasteland.

Regular therapy and time do not resuscitate a neglected True Self. However, while the research into psychedelics is limited at this stage due to their legal status, the world is waking up to their potential to awaken dormant elements of the soul via other-worldly states of consciousness.

With psychedelics, anything seems to be possible. Dormant memories become accessible not only from current life, but from past lives via ancestral DNA. Psychedelics can also bring intergenerational pain and trauma to the surface to be processed and released. States of peace, love, power and wonder can be aroused in ways that the mind cannot fathom. Psychedelics do not only promise another world of therapy, but an entire universe.

Three types of psychedelics especially hold immense therapeutic potential:

1. MDMA

MDMA works by increasing the activity of serotonin in the brain. It induces feelings of love, joy and peace, and elevates the senses beyond measure.

When a person is on MDMA, the outside world awakens and brightens, becoming a glowing wonderland. This is why it is used as a recreational drug in the party scene. It allows deep connection with people and music, and creates a sense of oneness with the world, the universe and humanity at large.

MDMA is also becoming a potential treatment for trauma. Because of the elevated serotonin, a person can relax deep into their body and feel completely safe. With a high enough dosage, all anxiety, fear, paranoia and doubt washes away. The resulting melting feeling allows the traumatised person to return from body exile and regain access to their True Self. The ego’s grip also melts away, allowing a person to move their consciousness into the True Self and experience it directly.

With MDMA, a person can access traumatic memories without the accompanying fear and negative emotions. They can witness a memory, accept it, grieve it and release the accompanying trauma with little discomfort. This is where the power of MDMA shines.

MDMA dislodges and softens trauma so that it can be cleared from the True Self, resulting in lasting changes to the person’s relationship to their Self. It can also melt away tension and resistance in the body, allowing the person more permanent access to their emotions moving forward.

MDMA is rather predictable in its function, with the elevated serotonin working in much the same way in all people. When applied in a therapeutic environment, however, its applications are endless. Those with complex trauma have unique wounds, and how those wounds are salved and healed must also be unique. MDMA can therefore be used as a powerful tool to penetrate the True Self and heal it in previously unimagined and impossible ways. The time window for MDMA is generally 2–4 hours, which becomes a golden opportunity for healing when taken in the presence of a qualified practitioner.

2. Magic Mushrooms

The reality rule book can be tossed away when it comes to magic mushrooms. In high doses, mushrooms alter how you see colours, or create vivid closed-eye visuals. From there, it only gets stranger.

A person can simply experience joy and oneness with the world, and come out with a deepened sense of Self and appreciation for life. Others undergo horrible experiences, being thrust into the depths of hell far within their souls. The pain of a lifetime can be awakened, or the power of the universe can flow through you. Sudden and profound truths and realisations about one’s family, one’s relationships, one’s life, or the universe at large, can spring suddenly into consciousness.

MDMA, to a degree, works uniquely on each person depending on their trauma, temperament and personality. Magic mushrooms are far more unpredictable and unique to each person. No single session is the same. The spectrum of experience is enormous, as is the potential for transformation.

Intergenerational trauma can suddenly become accessible, allowing a person to release hundreds of years of pain in one sitting. Such a confrontation understandably can tip a person toward the edge of insanity. For this reason, it is crucial to have a qualified practitioner at one’s side to contain, support and carry a person through their transformation.

3. Ayahuasca

From Wikipedia: Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive brew, traditionally used by Indigenous cultures and folk healers in Amazon and Orinoco basins for spiritual ceremonies, divination, and healing a variety of psychosomatic complaints. Ayahuasca is the vine that allows the spirit to wander detached from the body, entering the spiritual world, otherwise forbidden for the alive.

Ayahuasca is a truly magnificent and terrifying medicine, and not for the faint of heart. It can carry you through thousands of years of your ancestral lineage, connect you to archetypes and energy forms within the unconscious, and carry you through the universe, deep into all of the mysteries it holds. It cannot be described, but rather must be experienced. Even after the effects pass, there is no conceiving what one has witnessed. A person can only pick out certain pieces of their experience and then integrate them into their life.

Profound, unexpected, permanent transformations are possible without any apparent conscious intention. People have been known to give up addictions, release entire traumas, and have their personality and character fundamentally change after taking Ayahuasca.

Affectionately known as ‘Mother Ayahuasca’, this medicine possesses a level of wisdom and power unfathomable to the human mind. When ‘Mother Ayahuasca’ works her medicine on a person, she seems to know what they need and how they need it. She can be gentle and playful, or heavy-handed and destabilising in a way that affects every cell in a person’s soul. Much, much more can be said about this medicine, but leaving some mystery about it seems fitting in this case.

The Treacherous Path To Enlightenment

As you might have gathered, psychedelics, especially magic mushrooms and ayahuasca, can be dangerous. Their sheer unpredictability and potency can radically shift a person’s life in any direction — for better or worse.

As with any therapy, set and setting is preached when it comes to ensuring a successful and safe medicine experience. Prolonged fasting and getting your mind right beforehand (set) and working with an experienced practitioner in a safe environment (setting) is crucial. Most people get through their psychedelic experience unscathed and profoundly thankful for what they have discovered. Radical change is possible with psychedelics, this is now clear.

However, even with diligent preparation and support, psychedelics can have terrible effects. People have been known to fall into psychosis for extended periods afterwards. Others required months to recover their nerves after being devastated by what they saw and experienced. In rare cases, psychedelics have proven fatal.

Anyone thinking of trying psychedelics must first take pause and carefully consider making such a choice. Firstly, they will need to consider if they feel truly called to try it. If they have doubts, there is probably a good reason.

Next, they will need to understand the risks. While psychedelics cannot be predicted, and nobody can truly be prepared for them, a period of reflection and initiation is required beforehand. With the right attitude and healthy respect, the chances of success are high, while the risks can never be brought down to zero.

A Potent, Mercurial Tool

Rather than being a miracle cure, psychedelics can be thought of as a powerful tool with high potential for spiritual transformation and healing, as well as treating trauma.

Some patterns formed in early childhood cannot be altered, because they were developmental. That is, they were learnt and internalised through direct experience in the context of relationships. For example, psychedelics cannot heal the wound of being unseen, unloved and unprotected as a toddler. They cannot fill the voids left by bad parenting. They cannot relive your ideal life for you.

Above all, psychedelics cannot magically cure narcissism or any other disorder. The True Self contains infinite facets, and is infinitely complex. What psychedelics can do, however, is help release trauma and pain while shifting consciousness in a way that leads to unprecedented insights.

When taking psychedelics, a person is encouraged to set an intention for their experience and be purposeful and specific in their wish for transformation. This allows the most urgent problems in that person’s life to come under the effect of the psychedelic, which enables transformation that is unique to that person.

After taking psychedelics, a narcissist may let go of their grief at what they lost in childhood. They might gain crucial insight into the experience of both people who perpetrated against them, and people they perpetrated against. Their connection to spirit may be deepened. Their fear of death may be alleviated. Even love may visit them. Yet ultimately, these pieces must be integrated and used as parts of a unified whole. The narcissist would still need to take inventory, be courageous in facing their deficits, wounds and pain, and then integrate their awakening into their daily life.

Many changes from psychedelics fade in the preceding months, especially when integration is not fully pursued. Some realisations are too large to confront, and as is the case with humans, procrastination and denial might take hold when the ‘magic’ has faded. Furthermore, it might take multiple sessions on psychedelics to gain enough pieces to enable meaningful change. Working with psychedelics is a process, not a pill to take once.

Above all, while psychedelics can shine a light on and reanimate elements of the True Self, they cannot force a person to change — above all a narcissist. That part is up to them.