Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation
By Dan Shaw
Reviewed by Gillie Jenkinson
New York, NY: Routledge (imprint of Taylor and
Francis). 2013. ISBN-10: 041551025 ISBN-13:
978-0415510257 (paperback), $37.13
(Amazon.com). 192 pages.
Dan Shaw is a respected colleague whom I met
through the ICSA network. I was intrigued
when he told me at the ICSA New York
Conference in 2010 that he had left his cult in
1994 by being dropped off at a gas station just
down the road from the conference hotel. When
visiting New York, I have passed this gas station
a few times since, and I always think of Dan and
that landmark day for him. Having read his
book, I now know more of what he had escaped
from—the clutches of a traumatizing narcissist.
Shaw is a psychoanalyst in private practice in
New York City and Nyack, New York he also
is a faculty and clinical supervisor in The
National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP),
New York and former cochair for the
Continuing Education Committee for The
International Association for Relational
Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Shaw spent
13 years as a staff member in Siddha Yoga
(SYDA Foundation). There he wore many hats,
including manager of the residential Manhattan
facility, and educator, spokesperson, public-
relations coordinator, community organizer, and
writer/director of public programs. Shaw exited
Siddha Yoga in 1994, published an open letter
about Siddha Yoga on the Internet in 1995, and
helped create the Leaving Siddha Yoga website
(www.leavingsiddhayoga.net), one of the first
Internet websites for former cult members.
Shaw has published numerous psychoanalytic
papers, including pieces in the Cultic Studies
Journal. This book is a compilation of a number
of previously published articles.
Overview
Shaw’s book is clearly organized and is an
important contribution to both the psychotherapy
and the cultic-studies fields. He stands on the
shoulders of many great psychoanalytic thinkers
and practitioners who have attempted to describe
the complex phenomena of pathological and
traumatizing narcissism, and how to work
clinically with its various presentations. Shaw is
an original thinker. He has used his own
personal experience of being in a cult with a
traumatizing narcissist at the helm and his
extensive clinical experience as a psychoanalyst
to inform this theoretical and clinical
contribution.
This book is a must for psychotherapists because
it addresses the theoretical and clinical issues of
working with both the victims of a traumatizing
narcissist (referred hereafter as TN) and with
TNs themselves—although he notes that, by
nature of their disorder, TNs rarely attend
psychoanalysis. Shaw also addresses degrees of
authoritarianism and TN in supervision and in
therapy, where, in some cases, the therapist has
become an abusive TN and in effect a cult
leader.
This book is also important for former cult
members and their therapists. Shaw’s
understanding will help former members who
struggle with recovering from the effects of a
TN cult leader. His theoretical discussions help
to explain why former cult members feel so
depleted and abused by such leaders or gurus.
Shaw states, “Traumatic narcissism … can be
understood most simply as the action of
subjugation” (p. 136). He explains that a
traumatizing narcissist has an overinflated,
entitled, grandiose sense of self. The tragedy for
those on the other end of such a TN is that they
are weakened and their subjectivity, their sense
of themselves and how they see the world, is
suppressed and fed on by the narcissist, all
because of the TN’s need for control and
exploitation—and because the other’s
subjectivity is a threat to the TN. So in order to
inflate his own sense of self, the TN needs to
deflate and even obliterate the other’s sense of
self (p. 137). The dynamics of what may be
going on with a TN may be clear in theory, but
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014 57
By Dan Shaw
Reviewed by Gillie Jenkinson
New York, NY: Routledge (imprint of Taylor and
Francis). 2013. ISBN-10: 041551025 ISBN-13:
978-0415510257 (paperback), $37.13
(Amazon.com). 192 pages.
Dan Shaw is a respected colleague whom I met
through the ICSA network. I was intrigued
when he told me at the ICSA New York
Conference in 2010 that he had left his cult in
1994 by being dropped off at a gas station just
down the road from the conference hotel. When
visiting New York, I have passed this gas station
a few times since, and I always think of Dan and
that landmark day for him. Having read his
book, I now know more of what he had escaped
from—the clutches of a traumatizing narcissist.
Shaw is a psychoanalyst in private practice in
New York City and Nyack, New York he also
is a faculty and clinical supervisor in The
National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP),
New York and former cochair for the
Continuing Education Committee for The
International Association for Relational
Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Shaw spent
13 years as a staff member in Siddha Yoga
(SYDA Foundation). There he wore many hats,
including manager of the residential Manhattan
facility, and educator, spokesperson, public-
relations coordinator, community organizer, and
writer/director of public programs. Shaw exited
Siddha Yoga in 1994, published an open letter
about Siddha Yoga on the Internet in 1995, and
helped create the Leaving Siddha Yoga website
(www.leavingsiddhayoga.net), one of the first
Internet websites for former cult members.
Shaw has published numerous psychoanalytic
papers, including pieces in the Cultic Studies
Journal. This book is a compilation of a number
of previously published articles.
Overview
Shaw’s book is clearly organized and is an
important contribution to both the psychotherapy
and the cultic-studies fields. He stands on the
shoulders of many great psychoanalytic thinkers
and practitioners who have attempted to describe
the complex phenomena of pathological and
traumatizing narcissism, and how to work
clinically with its various presentations. Shaw is
an original thinker. He has used his own
personal experience of being in a cult with a
traumatizing narcissist at the helm and his
extensive clinical experience as a psychoanalyst
to inform this theoretical and clinical
contribution.
This book is a must for psychotherapists because
it addresses the theoretical and clinical issues of
working with both the victims of a traumatizing
narcissist (referred hereafter as TN) and with
TNs themselves—although he notes that, by
nature of their disorder, TNs rarely attend
psychoanalysis. Shaw also addresses degrees of
authoritarianism and TN in supervision and in
therapy, where, in some cases, the therapist has
become an abusive TN and in effect a cult
leader.
This book is also important for former cult
members and their therapists. Shaw’s
understanding will help former members who
struggle with recovering from the effects of a
TN cult leader. His theoretical discussions help
to explain why former cult members feel so
depleted and abused by such leaders or gurus.
Shaw states, “Traumatic narcissism … can be
understood most simply as the action of
subjugation” (p. 136). He explains that a
traumatizing narcissist has an overinflated,
entitled, grandiose sense of self. The tragedy for
those on the other end of such a TN is that they
are weakened and their subjectivity, their sense
of themselves and how they see the world, is
suppressed and fed on by the narcissist, all
because of the TN’s need for control and
exploitation—and because the other’s
subjectivity is a threat to the TN. So in order to
inflate his own sense of self, the TN needs to
deflate and even obliterate the other’s sense of
self (p. 137). The dynamics of what may be
going on with a TN may be clear in theory, but
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014 57
