Understanding Narcissistic Defenses- With Compassion

An IFS lens on parts that deny wrongdoing & shirk accountability

There’s a moment in every healing journey when we meet the parts of ourselves that are armored up so tight, we can hardly breathe. Therapy is hard enough when we’re focusing on all the ways we’ve been victimized by the people who have hurt us. But it’ll knock the wind out of us when we realize we may have hurt people in very similar ways to how we got hurt. And then we have to sit in the shame of that dawning awareness.

The moment when we become aware that we’ve been lashing out at the people we love, dismissing feedback with icy certainty, or curling into ourselves with justifications so clever we almost believe them can put a big crack in our self image. We think we’re these great people- and we are! But then we hear ourselves saying, “I didn’t mean it,” or “You’re just too sensitive,” or “You made me do it.” These aren’t just excuses—they’re signs that something more tender is hiding beneath the surface. That’s where narcissistic defenses come in—not as something to demonize and pathologize, but as a set of survival strategies, born of pain, trying to protect the most vulnerable parts of us.

So let’s take a breath together, bring in some Self energy, give ourselves a hug, and with gentleness and curiosity, unpack the different kinds of narcissistic defenses, so we can recognize when we’re using them and spot when they’re being used on us. Healing begins not when we fix ourselves, but when we understand why we built the armor that protects us in the first place. All of these defensive strategies are a variety of protector parts, so let’s hold onto our self esteem, open our hearts to all the strategies we’ve had to employ in order to survive, and get brave enough to face the truth.

We can encourage ourselves by remembering that defensiveness is one of the “Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse” in John & Julie Gottman’s couple’s research. If we want to be happy in a long term intimate connection, we’ve got to get a handle on our own defensiveness so we can deescalate quickly when conflicts inevitable ensue.

What Are Narcissistic Defenses?

When most people hear the word narcissistic, they conjure up images of arrogant tyrants, charming manipulators, or vain celebrities and social media influencers obsessed with their image. But the truth is, narcissistic defenses aren’t the exclusive domain of “narcissists.” They are a universal human phenomenon. We all use them at times to avoid being flooded with shame, to deflect from our pain, and to preserve a sense of identity and goodness when our sensitive egos feel threatened.

Narcissistic defenses tend to arise when someone else is trying to hold us to account for something we’ve done that hurts them. Maybe someone is accusing us of not carrying our weight with the housework or child care, forgetting their birthday, saying something insensitive, flirting with someone at a party, breaking an agreement, scaring them with our yelling, forgetting to pick up the milk from the grocery store, or otherwise doing something upsetting. For some trauma survivors, the idea that we’ve done anything wrong can be absolutely terrifying. If we were beaten whenever we messed up (or for absolutely no reason at all), the foreboding feeling that can accompany someone trying to hold us to account can be so frightening that the narcissistic defenses kick in before the other person even finishes their sentence.

Narcissistic defenses arise in moments of emotional overwhelm, especially if our nervous systems associate vulnerability with danger. We may feel strong when other people are happy with us and vulnerable when someone is upset with us, and that vulnerability may kick off the defenses in a way that’s so automatic it’s as reflexive as hitting your knee with a reflex hammer or blinking your eyes when someone is about to poke them. While narcissistic defenses can come across as grandiosity, entitlement, over-intellectualization, lack of empathy, or cold detachment on the surface, underneath them is often a terrified inner child who once learned that love was conditional, that mistakes create violence, and that authenticity might cost too much.

Let’s meet some of these defenses, one by one, with compassion for the scared parts of us who cling to them.

1. Denial: “That’s not true.”

Denial is the bedrock defense, the oldest friend of a wounded psyche. When reality feels too overwhelming to bear—especially the reality of our own flaws, mistakes, or traumas—denial steps in like a bodyguard and says, “Nope. That didn’t happen.”

Maybe someone tells us we hurt them, and the shame is too great to metabolize, so we go into “pretend mode” and start living in an alternate reality where we convince ourselves that the thing we’re getting accused of just didn’t happen. Even when presented with evidence that we did actually do the hurtful thing, we go into a delusional state of magical thinking and simply blank it out, refusing to believe it. Maybe you’re a mother witnessing your partner abusing your children, but your love for our spouse runs so deep that you simply can’t handle accepting reality. So you protect the perpetrator with your pretend mode, pretending it didn’t happen, rather than standing up and protecting your child. While denial looks like lying and gaslighting to the victim (and in a way, it is), denial as a narcissistic defense isn’t really lying—it's dissociation. It’s a shutting down of awareness in order to preserve connection or self-worth and protect against overwhelming feelings.

But here’s the paradox: what we deny holds us hostage. Healing asks us to gently turn toward the truth—not all at once, which can sometimes be too much, but in layers, as our nervous system becomes ready. When we turn towards what feels so hard to face, we often find that the truth isn’t as terrifying as our inner protector imagined it might be. It might even be a relief to finally live in the same reality as someone we’ve hurt. Only then can repair really happen.

2. Minimization: “It wasn’t that bad.”

Minimization is denial’s quieter cousin. Instead of rejecting reality outright, we shrink it down until it feels less threatening.

“Sure, I yelled at my kid, but it’s not like I hit them.”

“Yes, I cheated, but only emotionally.”

“I was neglected, but other kids had it waaay worse.”

Minimization can sound noble—like we’re trying to keep perspective or be resilient. But often, it’s a way to avoid the grief, guilt, or anger that would arise if we fully acknowledged the impact of our actions—or what was done to us. Minimization can also be used to shut down someone else’s legitimate protest of behaviors that need ownership, not defensiveness. And if you’ve ever been on the other side of that, it’s maddening.

What helps? Allowing ourselves to feel the full truth, without comparison or justification. As Gabor Maté says, trauma isn’t what happens to us—it’s what happens inside us as a result of what happens. And that inner experience deserves to be honored, even if it means developing shame resilience so we can handle processing the emotions that are naturally supposed to arise when we’ve done something that hurts someone else or when we’re experiencing bystander trauma.

3. Rationalization: “I had a good reason.”

Rationalization is the art of explaining away discomfort with intellectualizing logic. It makes us feel smart, in control, and above our uncomfortable emotions.

“I ghosted her because I have a right to my boundaries.”

“I yelled at him because he wasn’t listening, and I’m allowed to have feelings.”

“I didn’t betray her. I just followed my truth.”

“It wasn’t an affair. She was my twin flame and all bets are off when you meet your twin flame.”

When we use intellectualization to avoid accountability, we might be protecting ourselves from feeling shame, but we’re also abandoning our integrity. If we rationalize our behaviors when someone else is protesting something that hurt, we then add insult to injury. The rationalization defense is especially seductive for those of us who are highly educated, articulate, and spiritually literate. We can cloak our justifications in spiritual language—“My intuition told me to cut them off,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” But what if we paused long enough to ask, “What part of me is speaking right now? Is it my adult Self, or my wounded protector trying to avoid shame?”

4. Projection: “You’re the one with the problem.”

Projection is one of the most painful—and illuminating—defenses. When we can’t tolerate something in ourselves, we unconsciously assign it to someone else, which feels bewildering, confusing, and often intolerably painful to the person who’s getting projected upon.

You have to tread lightly with projection. Cult leaders and narcissists often convince their victims that everything you’re accusing them of is actually just a projection of yourself, which is a very convenient way to shirk accountability! What they don’t realize is that by accusing their victims of doing something wrong they’re often confessing to exactly what they’re actually doing.

How can you tell the difference? Many of us take accusations seriously, and if someone is projecting onto us, we might sincerely wonder if we’re actually doing what we’re being accused of. Likewise if you’re the one projecting onto someone else- and they’re denying that they’re guilty, how can you tell what’s real? Are they just in denial or are they really innocent?

The key is to understand projection, reality check the accusation, and examine the evidence. If you’re accusing someone else of doing something wrong, can you back it up with 3 bits of evidence? If someone seems like they’re falsely accusing you, it’s okay to ask them for 3 bits of evidence. If they freeze and go blank when you ask them to back up their accusations with evidence, or if they just switch to a different narcissistic defense, you’re probably dealing with someone else’s projections.

Also, look for disproportionate reactivity. If we feel disproportionate anger, judgment, or activation towards someone, it’s an invitation to look within. What part of me am I disowning? Can I reclaim it with compassion? This is where shadow work becomes a sacred path. Once we integrate the parts we’ve projected, we become more whole—and less reactive.

5. Displacement: “I can’t yell at my boss, so I’ll snap at my kid.”

Displacement occurs when we transfer emotional responses from a threatening or unavailable source to a safer substitute. A trauma survivor accuses a gentle partner of being controlling, because a parent once was. Someone who was gaslit accuses others of gaslighting, even if it's not happening now. This is sometimes called traumatic reenactment, but it’s more accurate to think of it as a blend of projection, transference, and unresolved trauma expressing itself in relationships.

The transference version of displacement can look like accusing someone in the present of doing what was done to us in the past. When we haven’t yet processed old traumas, we sometimes reenact them, projecting our unresolved hurt onto innocent people. This isn’t because we’re manipulative—it’s because the body and psyche are trying to find a resolution.

You feel helpless rage toward an abusive parent, but instead of raging at your parent, you rage at your safe, loving, securely attached spouse when they’ve done nothing wrong or when they do the smallest thing that reminds you of the parent, like wearing a red dress when your abusive mother wore a lot of red, or when they’re demanding justice after you’ve done something mean, and their angry face elicits an emotional flashback that reminds you of your mother.

Displacement is a defense mechanism that helps the psyche discharge emotional energy in a safer direction, not towards someone intimidating and scary, but towards someone less powerful (like a child or pet) or towards someone emotionally safer, like a loving attachment figure. It’s why someone might rage at a partner after being humiliated at work. Or why a child might kick the dog after being scolded by a parent. Displacement is an attempt to regulate emotions that feel too big for the original context. But it often causes harm to those least equipped to absorb it.

This defense softens when we create spaces for safe emotional expression—through therapy, somatic work, or conscious conversations with people who can hold us without judgment. The goal isn’t to stop feeling the anger or pain—it’s to direct it toward truth, justice, repair, and healing, not collateral damage. Healing begins when we slow down enough to ask: Who am I really angry at? Where does this feeling belong? And instead of hurting someone close to us, we can learn to grieve, rage, or speak the truth to the original wound—often with the help of a therapist, coach, or loving witness who can hold us without judgment.

6. Idealization and Devaluation: “You’re perfect—or you’re garbage.”

Narcissistic defenses often toggle between extremes: putting people on pedestals, then devaluing someone or tearing them down. This psychological process, called “splitting,” protects us from the complexity of human ambivalence. It’s an “all or nothing” trauma symptom that shows up as being you’re “all in” or “one strike and you’re out.”

If we grew up with inconsistent caregivers—sometimes loving, sometimes cruel—we might have learned to survive by organizing the world into “good” and “bad.” When someone disappoints us, instead of feeling our pain and learning to tolerating our hurt, we flip the switch: “They were never who I thought they were.” But real intimacy requires nuance. No one is all good or all bad—not even you. The more we heal, the more we can hold people (and ourselves) as complex, contradictory, imperfectly messy, and still worthy of love and repair attempts.

7. Blame-Shifting: “It’s not my fault. It’s yours.”

Blame is a powerful anesthetic for shame. When we feel criticized or exposed, blaming others helps us feel righteous, in control, and safe. But blame-shifting erodes trust. It prevents repair. And it keeps us stuck in cycles of defensiveness and disconnection. Blame-shifting is similar to projection, in that it causes trauma survivors to shirk accountability and attempt to move the shame elsewhere. It’s part of the classic narcissistic defense combo DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender).

Healing means reclaiming our agency—not by taking on all the blame, but by owning our impact, even if we didn’t intend to cause harm. There’s a quiet power in saying, “I see how I hurt you. I didn’t mean to, but I take responsibility for my impact on you.” That’s not weakness—it’s leadership.

8. Reaction Formation: “I don’t hate them—I love them!”

Reaction formation is perhaps one of the most confusing defenses—because it disguises what we truly feel by expressing the opposite. When a feeling is too shameful, taboo, or threatening—like hatred, envy, sexual attraction, or even joy—we might unconsciously flip it. The child who resents a parent’s control becomes the doting caregiver. The person attracted to someone “off limits” might become prudish or hypercritical. The woman taught that anger makes her unlovable becomes pathologically nice.

On the surface, we’re polite, generous, even affectionate. But underneath, our true feelings are exiled to the shadow—and they find sneaky ways of leaking out, often through passive aggression, anxiety, or illness.

Healing reaction formation requires radical permission to feel what we feel—without judging the parts that carry those emotions. No emotion is wrong. No bad parts. Even the “ugly” emotions or the parts that act out carry wisdom. When we reclaim our authentic emotional range, we no longer need to perform virtue. We can just be real.

What’s Underneath The Narcissistic Defenses?

Reactive shame often drives all the narcissistic defenses. It’s the inner belief that if we are seen as flawed, even if we just make a small mistake, we will be rejected, abandoned, or annihilated. Grandiosity is one way to ward off feeling not good enough, puffing ourselves up, one-upping anyone who tries to hold us to account, shutting down and stonewalling, lashing out and attacking anyone who protests bad behavior.

At the other end of the spectrum, we might collapse into a pit of reactive shame, which often causes us to demand narcissistic supply (praise, approval, validation, sex, attention) to combat the deep feelings of unworthiness. Reactive shame echoes in our heads as “I’m not just bad—I’m worthless.” If we feel that worthless, it’s really hard to own up to our mistakes and simply admit when we do something that might harm others, scare people we care about, or let others down.

If we’re on the other side of someone else’s reactive shame, it can feel very frustrating and self-absorbed. When we’re upset because someone has done something hurtful, the last thing we want to do is pull someone up by their bootstraps out of a pit of shame. We want apologies. We want repair attempts. We want accountability. But when someone is in a shame spiral because of past trauma, those valid desires are hard to access.

That’s why we have to take responsibility for doing our own guilt and shame work. It’s not fair to others to withhold accountability, apologies, and repair just because we feel not good enough when we mess up. We can’t expect the people we’ve hurt to help us feel better when we collapse into that pit. That’s what therapists are for.

What we can do is do the Internal Family Systems (IFS) work to reparent the parts that feel worthless, defective, broken, damaged, and not good enough. If we lack shame resilience because a perpetrator in childhood projected their shame onto us, when we were innocent, we can toss that shame back where it belongs- on the perpetrator. We can refuse to carry that burden any longer and demand justice. Once we hand a perpetrator’s shame back to them, we open up space inside so we can feel our own pro-social, healthy guilt and shame, without collapsing into the pit.

Shame can only heal in the light of compassion. When we stand in Self, or if a good therapist models that Self energy with us, we can meet our shame with unconditional love—not dismissing it, not avoiding it, not collapsing into it, but holding it tenderly. We can allow ourselves to feel the bad feelings of having hurt someone we care about without escalating into a totalizing belief like “I am bad.” Then shame can start to loosen its grip.

Why Narcissistic Defenses Are Not the Enemy

Too often in spiritual and psychological spaces, we demonize these defenses—labeling people as “toxic,” cutting them off, diagnosing ourselves or others with pathology, and deciding that anyone who employs narcissistic defenses is untreatable. While it’s true that it’s difficult to treat someone who employs these defenses, narcissistic defenses are never the root problem. They are symptoms of unhealed wounds and unmet needs, or in IFS language, untreated “exiles.”

They’re the psyche’s attempt to protect something precious: our worth, our belonging, our right to exist. Instead of shaming our hurt inner children and the protector parts that try to prevent us from feeling their hurt, we can thank our narcissistic defenses. Instead of letting them run the show, we can see them like a school bus full of young, unruly kids. We can get just enough space from them to see them as the survival strategies that they are. We can even name them as their impulses surface in our consciousness. Before we let them drive the bus, we can contain them- but this isn’t usually possible until we heal the parts that feel worthless underneath.

Once we bear compassionate witness and unburden the parts that carry past shame, we can say: “Thank you, protectors, for trying to keep me safe. But I don’t need you to drive the bus anymore.” From that place, we can bring curiosity to our reactions, courage to our self-examination, and compassion to the parts of us that are still learning how to love and be loved.

The Path To Healing

Healing doesn’t mean erasing all defenses. It means recognizing them when they arise, pausing before acting on them, and choosing a more relational, more conscious, less reflexive and automatic response. It means building the emotional capacity to stay present with the discomfort of knowing we hurt people sometimes. We mess up. We’re not perfect. We let people down. Rather than outsourcing our inner discomfort through projection, rationalization, or blame-shifting, we have to temper our nervous systems to be capable of being with those feelings. We have to increase our window of tolerance so we have more shame resilience when we do something wrong. Then we can have more empathy for the people we hurt, rather than making it all about ourselves. This can open us up to the possibility of healthy repair..

When we get defensive when someone else is trying to hold us to account, or when we can’t even face what we’re doing, this is a signal that something is unresolved in us. That doesn’t make us broken; it makes us human. And it’s okay to be human, as long as we own up to our imperfect humanness when it’s safe to do so.

To the part of you that’s armored up: Thank you. You did your best to help me survive.

To the part of you that wants to be free: You are ready.

To the part of you that is afraid to look within: You are not alone.

To the part of you that has hurt others: You can handle holding yourself accountable. The people you love deserve it.

Let this be your invitation to meet yourself—with clarity, humility, and grace.

Because you are not the sum of your defenses.

You are the spacious love that exists beneath them, waiting to be reclaimed.

*If this was helpful and you want to go deeper into an IFS community of practice to support healing relational trauma, healing narcissistic abuse or narcissistic tendencies, recovering from power over/ power under relational dynamics, deepening our empathy, learning how to repair when relational ruptures happen, and other relational skill building support for trauma survivors, please join us for our twice weekly community gathering on Zoom- LOVE SCHOOL.

Learn more and join LOVE SCHOOL here.

I’d love to hear from you all. Have you been impacted by narcissistic defenses. Have you employed some of these strategies? Can you access enough Self to recognize when they pop up like a whack-a-mole game, before you blend with these parts that can cause damage in your relationships? We have to be able to talk openly about such things- without defensiveness- so we can grow, heal, integrate our parts into a Self-led system, and becoming more capable of real loving connection, not just with others, but with ourselves.