Since its original publication in 2017, Lost in the Reflecting Pool: Surviving Narcissistic Emotional Abuse has received recognition from several independent literary organizations in categories that include memoir, family and relationships, self-help, reflection, personal struggle, and regional writing. Taken together, these honors reflect the book’s unusual scope.
It is both a deeply personal memoir and a psychologically informed exploration of emotional abuse, resilience, and the rebuilding of identity.
Recognition Across Two Editions
The memoir has been recognized in both its original edition, published by She Writes Press in 2017, and its expanded second edition, published by Muse Literary in 2024. The original edition established the book’s literary reputation, while the revised edition introduced additional psychological material, including an expanded Afterword discussing emotionally abusive relationships, and received a new round of recognition from reviewers and award programs.
Rather than replacing the earlier honors, the second edition extended the book’s critical record.
Reader Views Literary Awards
The expanded second edition received three honors through the 2025 Reader Views Literary Awards:
- Gold Medal — Memoir
- Silver Medal — Self-Help
- MidEast Regional Award
These awards acknowledge the memoir’s dual purpose. At its core is the story of one woman’s gradual recognition that the marriage she believed would sustain her had instead eroded her sense of self.
Alongside that personal narrative, the second edition offers a broader psychological discussion of emotional abuse and the process of recovery.
Earlier Literary Recognition
The original edition received significant recognition soon after publication. In 2019, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards named Lost in the Reflecting Pool the winner in the Memoirs category for Personal Struggle and Health Issues.
While the marriage remains central to the story, the memoir also examines illness, family relationships, professional identity, financial pressures, and the difficult work of rebuilding a life after years of emotional manipulation. The award reflects the breadth of those themes rather than reducing the book to a single subject.
Foreword INDIES Recognition
The original edition also received an Honorable Mention in the 2017 Foreword INDIES Awards in Family & Relationships within Adult Nonfiction. In addition, Foreword’s Clarion Review awarded the memoir five out of five stars.
The review praised the book’s emotional honesty, vivid sense of place, and compelling storytelling while offering a balanced critical assessment. It recognized the memoir not simply as an account of one marriage, but as a thoughtful exploration of how emotional abuse reshapes an entire family system.
Human Relations Indie Book Awards
The memoir also received four Human Relations Indie Book Awards:
- Gold Medal — Memoir
- Gold Medal — Marriage Relationship
- Silver Medal — Reflection
- Bronze Medal — Life Challenges
Together, these awards acknowledge the multiple dimensions of the work. The memoir recounts lived experience while also examining the psychological questions that emerged from it: how intelligent, capable people become trapped in emotionally abusive relationships, and how understanding often develops only after years of reflection.
A Memoir Informed by Professional Experience
Dr. Diane Pomerantz brings more than four decades of experience as a psychologist, teacher, speaker, and supervisor to her writing. Her clinical background provides a framework for understanding the dynamics of emotional abuse, personality development, trauma, and recovery.
What sets the memoir apart, however, is that professional knowledge never replaces personal experience. Rather than writing from the safety of clinical distance, Dr. Pomerantz examines her own life with the same curiosity, honesty, and compassion she brought to her work with patients.
That combination of lived experience and psychological insight has become one of the defining characteristics of the book.
Recognition Across Multiple Audiences
The range of awards reflects the memoir’s ability to reach readers for different reasons. Some approach it as a personal story of resilience, while others are drawn to its exploration of narcissistic emotional abuse, family relationships, or the psychological process of reclaiming one’s identity.
Its recognition across memoir, relationships, self-help, reflection, and health-related categories suggests that reviewers have found value in both its literary qualities and its psychological depth.
An Enduring Contribution
No literary award determines how an individual reader will respond to a memoir. Every reader brings a unique history and perspective to the page.
The awards received by Lost in the Reflecting Pool, however, offer independent recognition of the memoir’s storytelling, emotional honesty, and thoughtful examination of psychologically abusive relationships. Across two editions and multiple literary organizations, the book has continued to earn recognition for its contribution to conversations about emotional abuse, resilience, healing, and the enduring search for identity.
