When: March 20 & 21, 2026 | Friday & Saturday, 9:30-17:30
Where: The American College of Greece, Alba Graduate Business School (6-8 Xenias Street, 115 28, Athens)
Language of Instruction: English
Audience: By registration only
Registration Deadline: March 19, 2026
Overview
Narcissistic disorders are prevalent and have long been a challenge to clinicians. Narcissistic patients live according to a personal narrative that does not correspond to reality and that interferes with establishing relations with others and with successful functioning in the world. While aggrandizing the self, those with narcissism devalue and dismiss others.
Even though some people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) may appear to lead successful lives, their capacity for experiencing satisfaction and intimacy is severely limited.
An initial challenge for the clinician is that NPD has multiple presentations depending on the subtype or the level of personality organization. Therefore, this workshop will first describe the different types and levels of narcissism. After describing the types of narcissism, the workshop will present a theoretical framework for understanding NPD and a practical approach to treating individuals with the disorder: Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP). Once the therapy has begun, TFP focuses on both the internal psychological functioning of the individual and also on their functioning in the world.
Therapy with NPD patients presents a particular challenge with regard to the powerful feelings that emerge in the therapy sessions. NPD patients can engender strong emotional reactions in the therapist, including: boredom, incompetence, anger, and resentment. Experiencing these feelings and using them therapeutically is an essential part of the work of therapy.
Transference-Focused Psychotherapy is a manualized psychodynamic psychotherapy that has an evidence-base for the effective treatment of patients with Borderline Personality (BPD) and has been modified to treat patients with NPD.
Who is this for?
This workshop is ideally suited for mental health professionals, graduate and senior undergraduate psychology students, as well as social scientists and educators/professors who are interested in the issue of narcissism, its manifestations, and possible ways of treating, addressing, and overcoming it.
Why attend?
Learn new techniques and expand knowledge of the treatment of patients with personality disorders.
This workshop will review the therapeutic techniques that can help clinicians connect with and treat these patients. These techniques start with an emphasis on establishing an adequate frame for the therapy in the treatment contracting phase. The work then proceeds to using techniques to help the therapist maintain full empathy with the internal world of the NPD patient in all its emotional intensity as the therapist helps the patient move beyond his or her defenses to gain access to painful internal states that must be dealt with before the patient can establish a full sense of self and have a chance of experiencing the expectable satisfactions of functioning in life.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- implement the main therapeutic techniques and methods of transference-focused psychotherapy in their work with patients with personality disorders.
- gain a deeper understanding of the complicated topic of narcissism, its pathological manifestations, the social/cultural variables contributing to its increase over the last decades, and the role of the family of origin and past relationships in the emergence of narcissistic personality.
Certificate of Attendance
In order to be awarded the Certificate of Attendance from the Deree – Center of Professional and Continuing Education, participants will need to attend both days.
Course Fees
Regular single participant fee: €350
Members of the ACG community, Professional Education past participants and the unemployed: €300
Instructor
Frank E. Yeomans, MD, PhD
Frank E. Yeomans is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College. He is also the Director of Training in Personality Disorders Institute, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and a Research faculty member at Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He has a long-standing experience in the treatment of narcissistic pathology, and he is the author of many books and articles on this topic, as well as the treatment of borderline personality disorders. He is the current President of the International Society for Transference-Focused Psychotherapy.
For more information, please call +30 210 600 9800 ext. 1532, 1332 or email [email protected].