Internal Absence: Emptiness in NPD

Internal Absence: Emptiness in NPD

From Heal NPD by Mark Ettensohn, Psy.D.

May 26, 2026 · 15 min · Episode 61

About this episode

Dr. Mark Ettensohn explores the experience of emptiness in narcissistic personality disorder, framing it as a disturbance in identity rather than just a collection of traits.

Dr. Mark Ettensohn examines the experience of emptiness in narcissistic personality disorder and other forms of personality pathology. Rather than approaching personality disorders as collections of traits or behaviors, the episode frames them as disturbances in identity. Dr. Ettensohn outlines how the sense of self is constructed through early relational experience and how disruptions in that process can lead to unstable, fragmented, or underdeveloped self-experience. The discussion focuses on the role of dissociation and splitting in shaping identity, and how different self-states may become organized around incompatible relational experiences. In this context, emptiness is not simply a feeling, but reflects aspects of the self that were never fully recognized, mirrored, or integrated in development. Dr. Ettensohn also addresses a common misunderstanding in public discourse, where narcissism is equated with observable traits such as arrogance or entitlement. He explains why these descriptions capture only one part of a broader system involving both grandiose and vulnerable states, and how focusing solely on behavior obscures the underlying psychological structure. The episode…

People in this episode

Host: Mark Ettensohn

Topics covered

  • narcissistic personality disorder
  • emptiness
  • identity disturbance
  • dissociation
  • self-experience
  • clinical implications

Keywords

  • narcissism
  • personality pathology
  • self-construction
  • relational experience
  • psychological structure
  • grandiosity
  • vulnerability

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