Narcissistic Abuse in Maternal Care Settings

Did you know that medical providers are trained to behave in certain ways, in order to gain compliance?  These ways are effective, and they seem to take a page right out of the Narcissist Abusers Playbook.  Let's unpack this and work through solutions!

One of the hardest things about the sneaky psychology of manipulation in maternal care is that victims don't expect another person to treat them this way.  Pregnancy is supposed to be a time full of joy and excitement, but we have turned it into a fear-fest and that makes pregnant families so vulnerable to coersion without even knowing it.  They often blame themselves, assume ignorance, or otherwise "fawn" in the face of an abusive interaction by a perceived authority figure.  This cycle of emotional and mental violence is often reinforced by society as well as family/friends surrounding the birthing family, when they should take this opportunity to empower and protect their loved ones.  

If you're mentally or emotionally abused but you don't understand what is happening to you, you feel bad and you know something is wrong, but all the mixed messages you get - it is confusing to say the least.   The most effective way to avoid and/or deal with this kind of situation is to name the behaviors.  Once you can name a behavior, you can separate it from yourself, and recognize it as someone else's problem, vs internalizing the issue.  It begins the process of clearing away the confusion so you can take see things for what they are.

Being able to cause a victim to internalize abuse is POWERFUL.  It keeps the victim in the psychological loop where stress, fear and anxiety are able to be triggered.  Once those triggers are activated, the victim is easily influenced to do whatever the abuser wants.  Throw a load of oxytocin into the mix and now you have a maternal care abuse crisis.

During this event:

1) We will go over narcissistic abuse traits and behaviors.

2) We will define them, and explain how they look playing out in medical care interactions. 

3) Next we will discuss the anxiety, liability and other motivational factors in why caregivers want compliance so very much.

4) Then we will go over the dynamics around maternal care specifically so you can recognize them as they are happening.

5) Before we are done, we will talk through some proven techniques to help you safely navigate out of this cycle of systemic abuse.

Join us for this important discussion.  Share this event with your friends, families, colleagues.

See you there.