Book Essay: Reflections on the State of Narcissism: Musings From Three Books Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation. By Daniel Shaw . New York: Routledge, 2025, 246 pp., $34.39 paperback.Treating Pathological Narcissism With Transference Focused Psychotherapy. By Diana Diamond, Frank E. Yeomans, Barry L. Stern, and Otto F. Kernberg . New York: Guilford, 2021, 470 pp., $50.00 paperback.Narcissism: A Contemporary Introduction. By Richard Wood . New York: Routledge, 2025, 124 pp., $25.59 paperback.

When I was offered the opportunity to reflect upon the state of narcissism manifest in two recent psychoanalytic works, one of which was my own book, I was of course pleased, but also more than a little intimidated by the daunting task facing me.I was further given to understand that I could include other book(s) I regarded as particularly important.I chose to add Daniel Shaw's book on traumatic narcissism, believing that its inclusion would satisfyingly broaden and deepen the conversation between the books that I was to explore.The Diamond at al. approach is largely an object relations one while Daniel Shaw's orientation is relational.My own is also strongly relational, but is flexibly informed by a variety of different theoretical models, dependent upon my own sense of the tools/ conceptions that best capture a given clinical reality.Since its inception, perhaps beginning with Rank's (1911) and Freud's (1914/1957) initial attempts to grasp what it is, narcissism has challenged those clinicians who have tried to capture its essence.