Lisa Charlebois of Healing Your Narcissism to be Featured on Close Up Radio
GOLD RIVER, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, July 1, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- One of the common growing mental health concerns of our time deals with the problem of narcissism. Our guest maintains that narcissism is often misunderstood, as it is often a defense mechanism dealing with trauma – and is quite treatable. This is the story of Lisa Charlebois.
Lisa Charlebois is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) at Healing Your Narcissism.
“I am a psychotherapist whose main focus is adults that endured childhood trauma,” explains Lisa. “However, I work with many people dealing with the issues surrounding narcissism, as childhood trauma often causes narcissistic defense mechanisms. If you go to the trauma source of what the memory was, then it can be treated.”
“The traits of narcissism include not admitting to having any flaws or making any mistakes,” explains Lisa. “Because you were shamed for making mistakes growing up, you can’t admit your mistakes, you can’t apologize for them, and you get highly defensive. Gaslighting is also a common trait with narcissism. The narcissist will often delude themselves with grandiose thoughts. On the inside, narcissists tend to vacillate with a lot of self-loathing, self-hatred, depression, and anxiety. However, on the outside they tend to puff themselves up to make it appear as though they have it all together. Some more extreme narcissists will brag so much, that their deep insecurities become fairly evident. Narcissism is almost like having body dysmorphia, when for instance, people think that they’re fat, but they aren’t. In the same way, people can become successful, but they still feel that they aren’t good enough on the inside.”
“Narcissists suffer a lot!” declares Lisa. “Narcissists don’t feel safe being vulnerable.”
“One of the big misunderstandings about narcissists is that they are being confused with sociopaths and psychopaths,” concerns Lisa. “Narcissists are now terrified to come forward to get help because they are now afraid to be labelled as such. Most narcissists are not violent and have never abused their spouses, partners, or anyone. Significant others often have compassion for their narcissistic partners as they do realize that the narcissist was traumatized. So much of my motivation is to not only help the narcissist, but also their partners.”
“Can we start humanizing this condition and stop pathologizing it?” exclaims Lisa. “It doesn’t have to be stigmatized!”
In conjunction with her clinical practice, Lisa offers an eight-week video course on narcissism, what it is and what it isn’t, and ultimately how to heal from its traumatic effects.
In 2010, Lisa wrote a book titled, You Might Be A Narcissist If...How to Identify Narcissism in Ourselves and Others and What We Can Do About It. Written for the lay person, it features seven chapters about narcissism, and even includes a questionnaire on if someone might have it. “Many people when they read it, realize that they have at least some narcissistic tendencies because experiencing shame in childhood is common and so is the need to defend against it,” observes Lisa.
“I know this disorder from the inside out,” explains Lisa, who also exhibited many narcissistic tendencies herself, but later recovered from it. As a child with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Lisa felt inadequate as it was difficult for her to focus in school, save for a few subjects. She endured traumatic shame from narcissistic parents who didn’t mean to be narcissistic but had unconsciously built their own defenses as survival mechanisms growing up. This later resulted in her becoming narcissistic. Her sense of self was extremely unstable vacillating between feelings of greatness and massive anxiety, with feelings of deep insecurity, and unrealistic fears of failure. For instance, when she was in graduate school, she would express the concern to her husband that she was afraid she was going to flunk out and he would have to point out the reality to her that she was making straight A’s. Also, after their first year of marriage, she and her husband had a discussion where he expressed his concern that she had never admitted to making a single mistake nor apologized for anything. This led her to do some soul searching. “Why am I doing this? Where is it coming from?” she would ask herself. She then did some additional research in graduate school and realized that she herself was a narcissist. Most important, she discovered that it was treatable, and after counseling, was able to recover from it. In 1988, she earned her Master's degree in Social Work in Mental Health from California State University Sacramento (Sac State). In 1990, she earned the title as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). In 1993, she transitioned from working in residential treatment with emotionally disturbed youth to working as a full-time psychotherapist.
Concurrently, while launching her Healing Your Narcissism 8-week masterclass, she continues working as a psychotherapist in private practice, and she also works as a clinical social worker for Compassion Planet. At Compassion Planet, they mentor at-risk young adults…many of which have aged out of the foster care system. “They are an often lost and forgotten part of the population,” notes Lisa. “I love them.”
As for the future, Lisa plans to continue as a therapist to help as many people as possible. She also desires to publish additional video courses on narcissism and mental health.
“There is a lot of misinformation online about narcissism,” concludes Lisa. “I hope to clear up some of the huge misconceptions.”
Close Up Radio will feature Lisa Charlebois in an interview with Jim Masters on Wednesday July 3rd at 1pm Eastern / 10am Pacific
Listen to the show on BlogTalkRadio1
If you have any questions for our guest, please call (347) 996-3389
For more information, please visit https://healingyournarcissism.com/, https://grcca.com/lisa-charlebois/ and https://www.compassionplanet.org/
Those interested in Lisa’s eight-week video course, for a limited time, she is offering a 50% discount off the price by entering the code J5RHYKD on her website
You may also contact Lisa via telephone at (916) 508-1920 – texting is best
You may also purchase Lisa’s book on Amazon2 and it’s also available in Audible
Lou Ceparano
Close Up Television & Radio
+1 631-850-3314
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1 https://www.blogtalkradio.com/closeupradio/2024/07/03/close-up-radio-spotlights-lisa-charlebois-of-healing-your-narcissism
2 https://www.amazon.com/You-Might-Narcissist-Narcissism-Ourselves/dp/1934938742/
