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Traumatic Narcissism covers a wide swath of analytic territory, holding the theoretical, clinical, cultural, and technical within its scope. As a whole, it represents the carefully considered and curated position of an analyst who has integrated theory, personal experience, and clinical insight and who has arrived at way of understanding and working with a particular intersubjective system that he has identified. Although he roots his work firmly in psychoanalytic theory and tradition, this contribution is also very human and personal. Shaw applies his personal/professional idiom to both clinical formulation and contact as any truly intersubjective encounter must. He conveys a vivid metapsychological weltanschauung meticulously constructed out of elements drawn from Mitchell, Ghent, Benjamin, Ferenczi, Fairbairn, and countless attachment researchers. His theory is highly structured and focused such that his ideas and observations will be useful to the reader in making a discreet diagnosis in cases of “traumatic narcissism” but also in identifying threads and tendencies within our patients’ narratives that will contribute to more acute understandings and interpretations.
The title of the book alone should compel readers of any analytic stripe to purchase a copy, though readers with an appreciation of drive theory will very certainly bristle at some of Shaw’s formulations. It may be incidental, but I think it is also interesting and meaningful to note that almost all of my patients were struck by and commented on the title of this book as it sat on my desk. With my third ear, I heard patients responding to something that they seemed to recognize in one form or another, and it sparked a number of powerful associations for most. Curled up tightly within the title is the entirety of the phenomenon that Shaw has insightfully identified; the book unpacks this intricate and nuanced idea in its opening chapters (there are eight, in sum). Other chapters are spent demonstrating