Great article. I like the idea of E.A.R. On a whole I think that is a great way to rnpsoed in order to de-escalate a situation when someone is angry. Sadly, we often do rnpsoed to angry people with more anger. Our society desperately needs to start taking more responsibility in how we treat each other.However, I feel a GREAT NEED to point out the danger in using empathy with a narcissist. Empathizing with a narcissist can easily be misconstrued as taking away their uniqueness or suggesting something is wrong with them. It can be as great a narcissistic injury as blatantly putting them down. To a narcissist their pain is greater than anyone else's. To suggest that you understand them while they are in distress can be dangerous. It is one thing for them to say they are going through a difficult time, it is something else altogether for someone else to acknowledge this. That would be the double standard often seen in that personality disorder. It is confusing to comprehend how anyone could receive such a supportive gesture and react with outright rage and contempt. But this often happens with abusive personalities. Words of kindness are easily twisted in ways that are virtually incomprehensible to others. It is no surprise that the feeling that one can never do the right thing is a common mantra for individuals of narcissistic abuse. I know this because I have experienced this personality disorder in the clinical setting as a professional therapist as well as personally as a survivor of domestic violence/abuse via a narcissist. Narcissism is no doubt a very difficult disorder to understand as well as to attempt to treat. But there's a reason they say it's untreatable. What I mentioned above is part of that reason. However, I applaud your efforts to stop domestic violence and to remind everyone that we all play a role in shaping our culture. If we continue to turn a blind eye to abusive behavior in others we are doing a great injustice to our society. I believe that we are creating the very problems that ail us by not speaking up and by leaving that to the victims who are often too beat down to do anything about it in a safe manner. Thanks for working to make a difference.
