Welcome to the ISSTD Virtual Book Club Registration page.

The Virtual Book Club is pleased to announce our next book for discussion as "Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation" by Daniel Shaw. This book is an excellent treatise furthering our understanding of the relational impact of narcissism on the subjective experience and reality of its recipient, i.e. relational trauma. As we all strive to understand the meaning of traumatic intrusions on our patients, the dynamic of perpetrators' narcissistic subjugation and coercion of their subjective reality is a key concept. It is also central to our understanding of, and therapeutically relating with, dissociative aspects of our patients' selves that are introjectively patterned to sustain that coerced reality in the service of attachment and affect regulation. In other words, the concepts explicated in this book will help us learn better ways to relate with abusive internal alters which is typically the lion's share of our work to establish a stable working alliance with our patients.

Although this is more psychodynamically oriented than trauma-specific, I believe it has tremendous applicability to the work we do with our severely traumatized and dissociative patients. Those of you who were with us in reading Rich Chefetz' book may recall his explication of "object-coercive doubting." Shaw's book further examines this dynamic in its multiple iterations, and helps us understand more completely how narcissism fuels relational trauma and how it is motivated. His definition of "traumatic narcissism" becomes a template for understanding how our traumatized patients become entangled in the forced subjectivity of the other.

So please join us as Daniel Shaw has graciously agreed to be our companion in digesting this fascinating book!

Continuing Education Credits (up to 8 pending approval) will be available for a nominal cost, but the discussion is of course free to you as a member of ISSTD. Please join us!

A 20% discount is available on the purchase of the book through Routledge by entering promo code RMH01.

This is for ISSTD Members Only. If you are not yet a member and are interested in joining, please visit: http://www.isst-d.org/default.asp?contentID=216