Understanding and Navigating Toxic Relationships

CIIS Public Programs

Understanding and Navigating Toxic Relationships: A Live Online Workshop with Ramani Durvasula

Nourishing Mind, Body, and Spirit

Explore ways to nourish your mind, body, and spirit in unique workshops that center care for ourselves and each other.

Perspectives on Connection

Engage with conversations and workshops providing pathways to better understanding yourself and how you relate to others.

This workshop is being hosted live online only and will not be recorded to maintain the privacy of all attendees. Instructions on how to join will be emailed to registrants shortly before the workshop start date. If you need to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@ciis.edu at least one week prior to the workshop start date. For more information, explore our <a href="https://www.ciis.edu/public-programs/frequently-asked-questions" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Frequently Asked Questions</a>. Narcissism is a personality style characterized by conflict, antagonism, dysregulation, and above all, pathological insecurity. This toxic pattern results in interpersonal challenges, including family of origin dysfunction, significant difficulties in intimate relationships, and antagonism in the workplace. 
Relationships with narcissists and toxic people can result in significant distress and can harm your overall health, cutting across families, close relationships, friendships, and workplaces. There are risk factors many of us hold that render us more vulnerable to entering and staying in toxic relationships. The fallout of these relationships—“narcissistic abuse”—is still a pattern being understood within the field of mental health. The challenge is that not everyone can, or wants, to walk away from their toxic relationships—and whether a person decides to remain or steps away, there are important strategies to understand. Healing from these relationships is a complex mix of grief work and self-exploration. 
Join psychologist and narcissism expert Dr. Ramani Durvasula for an illuminating and supportive workshop on understanding and navigating narcissism and toxic relationships. This interactive workshop combines teaching, self-study, exploration of cases, and strategies on how to manage the toxic, high conflict, difficult, dysregulated, narcissistic, and antagonistic personalities in our midst. Understanding the subtypes and continuum of narcissism can help you manage the distress raised by these toxic relationships and can result in new strategies for approaching them in a way that preserves your mental health. 
 
This workshop supports all individuals seeking guidance, support, and healing in relationship to toxic individuals as well as professionals working directly with clients.
Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, CA and Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and the Founder and CEO of LUNA Education, Training &amp; Consulting, a company that offers a range of programs focused on educating survivors, clinicians, coaches and businesses on the impacts of narcissism on health, wellness and functioning. She takes on entitlement and incivility in “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dont-You-Know-Who-Entitlement/dp/1682617521/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1CE271JEAUDDR&keywords=don%27t+you+know+who+i+am+ramani&qid=1555637252&s=gateway&sprefix=don%27t+you+know+who+I+am+%2Caps%2C181&sr=8-2-spell" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Don’t You Know Who I Am”: How to Stay Sane in the Era of Narcissism, Entitlement and Incivility</a>. She is the author of the modern relationship survival manual <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Should-Stay-Surviving-Narcissistic-Relationship/dp/1618688782/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443378414&sr=1-4&keywords=should+i+stay+or+should+i+go" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist</a>, and of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-WHY-Eat-Attitude/dp/0762788186/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443378467&sr=1-1&keywords=you+are+why+you+eat" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">You Are WHY You Eat: Change Your Food Attitude, Change Your Life</a>. She also has a popular YouTube channel that focuses on narcissism and difficult relationships. The focus of Dr. Durvasula’s clinical, academic and consultative work is the etiology and impact of narcissism and high-conflict, entitled, antagonistic personality styles on human relationships, mental health, and societal expectations. Her work has been featured at SxSW, TEDx, and on a wide range of media platforms including Red Table Talk, the Today Show, Oxygen, Investigation Discovery, Bravo, and she is a featured expert on the digital media mental health platform MedCircle. Dr. Durvasula’s research on personality disorders has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and she is a Consulting Editor of the scientific journal Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Durvasula is an honest, authentic, and brutally honest voice on the struggles raised by narcissism in the US and globally.