If I had a dime for every client that professed their ex is a narcissist…

Please stop calling your ex a narcissist.

I am not suggesting that your ex isn’t a narcissist. I am just telling you to stop referring to him or her as a narcissist in public. Here is why:

You are not a diagnostician

If you are not a psychologist or psychiatrist then this label is just an opinion. Opinions are subjective and never factual. They are thoughts, not circumstances, and not everyone on the planet would think you are correct. It is pretty easy to lose credibility when you spout your opinions like facts.

It can hurt your case

The only people more bored by the term narcissist than me are the custody assessors. Labelling your ex a narcissist to a custody assessor as if you are giving them a factual revelation will bite you in the butt. You may be perceived as angry or vindictive. You may also be perceived as a know-it-all because you are acting as a self-proclaimed psychologist. No doctor wants to be given the diagnosis by their patients. Just give them the clinical signs. 

Reveal the truth about your narcissistic ex without calling them a narcissist

The secret sauce to reveal the truth about your ex involves never calling them a narcissist and never diagnosing them at all.

• speak about the things they say and do with curiosity and compassion
• use these anecdotes like a trail of breadcrumbs that will lead the listener to make their own inference about your ex

It sounds something like this: It is strange that he wants to have shared parenting but when I offered an extra weekend before he went on holiday with his wife, he did not take it. I was surprised. 

She wants to have the children stay with her at her boyfriend’s house, but they keep refusing.  I wonder if it would help to have a professional assist with this.