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Narcissists Pretend to Heal | Dr. Ramani Durvasula

26 May 2024 · 1 min

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In this segment Dr. Ramani Durvasula critiques a growing trend she calls "pseudo healing," where individuals engage in a barrage of self‑help practices—such as frequent meditation, mindfulness, and psychedelic experiences—yet continue to behave in entitled, dismissive, and contemptuous ways. She labels this phenomenon "healing porn" or "recovery porn," describing it as a form of spiritual bypass where outward displays of personal growth mask unchanged, often narcissistic, interpersonal conduct. The core argument is that the quantity of self‑improvement activities is irrelevant; what truly matters is how a person shows up in the world, and many are using these practices to avoid confronting deeper issues rather than achieving genuine healing.

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I think that a lot of people right now in the world are engaging in pseudo healing and I think it's just narcissistic navel gazing and they're actually not really healing. What does that mean? I think is that they're doing whatever they're doing. Like I meditate 75 times a day and I do mindfulness this and I ayahuasca that and blah blah, blah, blah, and they do all of that, but they're still really going through the world in a rather monstrous, entitled, dismissive, contemptuous way. But it's sort of like, you know what I call healing porn or recovery porn. Like, look at my recovery. I'm so recovery ish. It's like a spirit spiritual bypass. Exactly. It's a spiritual bypass. And that that gives me pause. So you can't even just say, oh, they're doing all this work on themselves. I don't care how much work they're doing on themselves. How are they showing up?