This book looks at the trauma suffered by those in relationships with narcissists, covering topics such as surviving a cult, dysfunctional families, political dysfunction, and imbalances of power in places of work and education.
This new volume by author and psychoanalyst Daniel Shaw revisits themes from his first book, Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation. Shaw offers further reflections on the character and behavior of the traumatizing narcissist, the impact such persons have on those they abuse and exploit, and the specific ways in which they instill shame and fear in those they seek to control. In addition, this volume explores, with detailed clinical material, many of the challenges mental health professionals face in finding effective ways of helping those who have suffered narcissistic abuse. From within a trauma informed, relational psychoanalytic perspective, Shaw explores themes of attachment to internalized perpetrators, self-alienation, internalized aggression and loss of faith in the value and meaning of being alive.
This book will be especially illuminating and rewarding for mental health professionals engaged in helping patients heal and recover from complex relational trauma, and equally valuable to those individuals who have struggled with the tenacious, often crippling shame and fear that can be the result of relational trauma.
“Dan Shaw’s understanding of relational trauma permeates the collection of his writings contained in this excellent book. How he communicates the inner experience of his patients can transform any therapist’s ability to attune to traumatized individuals.”
Janina Fisher
Assistant educational director, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors and Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma.
“In his 2014 Traumatic Narcissism, Daniel Shaw described the cult leader who dominates by “coercive persuasion” and the effects on those who follow. Here he tangles with the relational demons, especially shame, internalized by all of us who have fallen under the leader’s spell, convincing us that we are trash, only fit to serve them. He gives new meaning to speaking the unspeakable in a humanistic psychoanalysis, offering hope and dignity through debunking the narcissistic dominator, taking relational psychoanalysis to its depths and horrors. This work is priceless.”
Donna Orange
Author of Psychoanalysis, History and Radical Ethics: Learning to Hear
“Daniel Shaw was taken by surprise when his first book, Traumatic Narcissism, struck a nerve not only with fellow psychotherapists, but also with the lay public. Shaw had put his finger on a source of relational trauma as profoundly destructive as it is common and poorly understood. Pathologically narcissistic people, when they are needed attachment figures, such as parents or leaders, cause untold suffering, often without perpetrating any sort of physical abuse. In this book, Shaw continues this important exploration―and this time the breadth of interest the book will arouse will come as no surprise.”
Donnel B. Stern, Ph.D.
William Alanson White Institute and NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
“Of all of the psychoanalytic commentators on narcissism in the past two decades, surely the most important is Daniel Shaw. It is not just that Shaw writes passionately and insightfully about narcissism, especially in its malignant and traumatic aspects, because of his own personal experiences as the survivor of a religious cult. It is also that he understands that narcissism is, paradoxically, a deeply relational concept, not possible without the participation of others. In this articulate, compassionate, and honest contribution, Shaw ranges from the micro to the macro, from the clinical situation to society in its current crisis, from the personal to the political, as he delineates the complexity of narcissistic dynamics and phenomena, both in individual lives and in society as a whole.”
John Auerbach, PhD
Department of Psychiatry, University of Florida
“This book is a brilliant continuation of Shaw’s work on traumatic narcissism. Clinically sophisticated and with a fresh theoretical stance, it bravely examines the wounds of early relational trauma and their profound impact on one’s life. Adding to his scope new ideas on cults, authoritarianism, spirituality and faith, Shaw delicately portrays the complexity of love and hate, longing and aggression, giving and receiving, life and death– as each presents itself in and outside of the therapeutic relationship. This volume offers a soulful understanding of painful journeys toward healing.”
Galit Atlas, PhD
NYU Postdoctoral Program for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Author of The Enigma of Desire.
“Writing in an experience-near and trauma-informed language, Daniel Shaw has crafted a penetrating and compassionate look inside the mind of the traumatizing narcissist and the surrounding relational field. The reader is taken on a passionately written journey with perspectives that span intrapsychic, interpersonal, and social psychological, including an exploration of the toxic narcissism that has taken up residence at the highest levels of government. Immediately accessible, and broad in its reach, Shaw woos the reader with uncommon sense in a no-holds-barred effort to free us from the eventual strangulation of free will and dignity by the narcissist’s unerring, amoral tentacles. Brilliant in its conception, and incisive in the exploration of case material with a quintessential two-person psychology, Shaw provides a humanistic feast of ideas. Join him at the table, and savor the meal.”
Richard A. Chefetz, M.D
Author of Intensive Psychotherapy for Persistent Dissociative Processes: The Fear of Feeling Real
“Daniel Shaw established himself as a leading psychoanalytic thinker with Traumatic Narcissism. The wise and compassionate essays in this book deepen his meditations on the concept of relational trauma from clinical, theoretical, personal, political, and spiritual perspectives. He gives us the loving companionship we need to sustain us on our therapeutic quests and to be able to answer Hamlet’s question, ‘To be or not to be?’ in the affirmative.”
Peter L. Rudnytsky, PhD
University of Florida & Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute; author of Formulated Experiences: Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm
