Category: Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Lamb, by Bonnie Nadzam



(This is another book review republished from my old blog. This is a timely subject for some of the information I’m covering in my Abnormal Psychology class, and I figured I’d share it with them.)

Lamb hits a mid-life crisis when his wife divorces him for infidelity and his father passes away. Just after his father’s funeral, he meets Tommie – an 11-year-old girl who desperately needs guidance. Lamb is strangely attracted to the girl – he wants to help her seize life, he wants to buy her presents and make her happy. Then, with Tommie’s consent, he abducts her. 

I had a really hard time deciding how to rate Lamb. The narrative was intriguing – almost addictive – but the subject matter was very disturbing. I had a hard time putting it down because I wanted to know how it would end. I felt compelled to keep reading despite a deepening sense of unease. From the subject, I should have known it would make me feel that way, but I thought it would be a book with more hope in it. I respect the way Nadzam kept the details subtle. There were no highly disturbing scenes (well, there was ONE scene that was a bit disturbing, but it could have been much, much worse). My recommendation – read this book if you would enjoy looking at pedophilia from another perspective, but avoid it if this is a sensitive topic for you.

Spoilerish Discussion 

Before deciding how to rate the book, I took a look at what other people had said about it. There are, predictably, people who loved the book and people who hated it. In the interest of proving to myself that I’m not narrow-minded, I want to have a spoilerish discussion to address some issues that came up in the positive reviews.

First of all, one review pointed out that it was unclear who the narrator of this book was. To me, it seemed that the book was in the third person subjective, focusing on Lamb. There were a few scenes where it seemed to be from the POV of Tommie, but even that could have been in Lamb’s head. So that’s how I’m interpreting the book – our narrator is telling us what Lamb is thinking, and sometimes Lamb thinks about what Tommie is thinking, and sometimes he thinks about what might be happening back in Chicago as Tommie’s parents look for her, but we’re always inside Lamb’s head.  That is very important for how I interpreted the book.

Another thing that affects the way I perceive Lamb – I despised him from the beginning. Even before he abducted Tommie. Even when his intentions seemed kind. I despised him because of how he treated his girlfriend. He was manipulative and creepy and a liar. All he wanted was sex, and although he claimed to have qualms of conscience about his behavior, that’s ALL he had. Small qualms. These qualms didn’t stop him from manipulating her, did they? Qualms of conscience don’t make someone a “good” person. Listening to qualms makes a person “good.” Behavior is what I’m interested in, not whether a person feels guilt or not. The fact that he feels guilt proves that he’s not a sociopath, but he’s still a jerk. Just because he rationalizes his behavior, does not mean his rationalizations are justification. We need to interpret his rationalizations with skepticism.

Yes, he rationalized his original interest in Tommie as helpfulness. But let’s think about it. The very first time he met Tommie, he grabbed her arm and threw her in his truck so hard that her head hit the window. She was terrified. Yes, he rationalized that he was helping her to see what could have happened. She shouldn’t have approached him – a stranger – because he could have been dangerous. He rationalized that he taught her a lesson. But the fact that he was willing to frighten her like that was the first hint that his behavior towards her was driven by darker urges. Yes, perhaps this time around his rationalization had some grain of truth in it. Perhaps she did learn a lesson. But was that lesson his to teach?

Lamb’s rationalizations continued throughout the entire book. I never interpreted them as anything but rationalizations. So I was rather surprised when I read in some reviews that they interpreted his intentions as good. Let’s think about this. 

Rationalization 1) Abducting her in front of her friends taught her a lesson about approaching strangers and about shallow friends. – We discussed this above.

Rationalization 2) Encouraging her to skip school and lie to her parents in order to hang out with him didn’t corrupt her, because she was already doing those things. – Well, if he really cared, he wouldn’t encourage her to skip school and keep secrets. That’s sleazy, creepy behavior. 

Rationalization 3) Abducting her and teaching her to be a woman was helpful, because she needed that experience…it would help her break out of that awkward phase in life and burst into the world with new confidence. She’d look back with fondness on him. – Now this is where the rationalization gets sticky. I interpreted these flash-forwards to be rationalizations taking place in Lamb’s head. BUT, if you interpret these flash-forwards to be accurate or from the point of view of Tommie, I can see where you might (as some people apparently do!) think that Lamb helped Tommie. In the interest of not being narrow-minded, I tried to look at it from that point of view. But, no. The story simply makes more sense to me if I interpret these flash-forwards as rationalizations in the head of Lamb. And Lamb is rationalizing because he knows he’s hurting her. In fact, it’s clear he knows he’s hurting her, because there are other scenes in which he’s crying and telling Tommie that if she ever hates him, she should kick his balls in. Doesn’t that show us that he knows he’s doing wrong?

Some reviews actually suggested that Lamb loved Tommie, and that his intentions were good. But he knew he was hurting her (or else he wouldn’t break down into tears and tell her to kick his balls in, and he wouldn’t rationalize). He was consciously lying and manipulating her. (It’s clear that these were conscious acts, because in one scene he pointed out to his girlfriend that he “makes people say and do things.”)  So, I’m convinced that Lamb knew he was hurting her – why would he act that way if he loved her? That’s not love. Love is selfless. That’s a darker sort of obsession. That’s acting on urges. Love can be an obsession, but we shouldn’t assume that obsession is love.

Finally, some people questioned whether Lamb had actually had intercourse with Tommie. There was nothing that directly said he did, but I felt it was implied. He definitely kissed her, saw her naked, and slept in the same bed as her. Furthermore he got kicks out of letting Tommie watch him having sex with his girlfriend, which is a form of molestation in itself. So, yes, how far he went is still a question, and I’m glad I didn’t have to read that one last detail. But I made my own conclusion about the issue – and it wasn’t good.

Personality Disorders – Cluster B

As mentioned in my opening post about personality disorders, personality disorders are split into three clusters -A, B, and C. This post will discuss cluster B. People with these disorders tend to be dramatic, emotional, and erratic. 

Patients with histrionic personality disorder are characterized by self-dramatization, over-concern with attractiveness, tendency to irritability, and temper outbursts if attention-seeking is frustrated. These patients often manipulate their partners with seductive behavior, but they are also tend to be very dependent on the partners’ attention. They are generally considered self-centered, vain, shallow, and insincere. These traits are much more commonly seen in women than in men – probably because many of the characteristics (like over-concern with appearance) tend to be “women’s traits.” In fact, some argue that histrionic personality disorder is just another form of anti-social personality disorder, which is much more prevalent in men. 

In order to be diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder, the patient must have 5 or more of the following traits: 1) she is uncomfortable in situations in which she is not the center of attention; 2) her interactions with others are often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behaviors; 3) she displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions; 4) she consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to herself; 5) she has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail; 6) she shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion; 7) she is suggestible (i.e. easily influenced by others or circumstances); 8) she considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are. 

This is one of the personality disorders that will be dispensed with if the next DSM moves towards a dimensional model of diagnosis, as mentioned in my earlier post. 

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by grandiosity, preoccupation with receiving attention, self-promoting, and lack of empathy. There are two types: grandiosity and vulnerable narcissism. In the former, the patient is convinced of their superiority; in the latter the patient expresses superiority defensively due to a low self-esteem. Narcissistic personality disorder is observed more often in men than in women. 

In order to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, the patient must meet five or more of the following traits: 1) he has a grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior); 2) he is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; 3) he believes that he is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special people; 4) he requires excessive admiration; 5) he has a sense of entitlement; 6) he is interpersonally exploitative; 7) he lacks empathy and is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings or needs of others; 8) he is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him; 9) he shows arrogant, haughty behaviors. 

Now, I doubt my ex-boyfriend had a personality disorder, but he did have quite a few of these traits – possibly exacerbated by a lifetime of alcoholism which he had only recently given up when I’d met him. In fact, at one point in our relationship, he went to a neurologist to be checked for long-term side-effects of a past concussion, and he returned with a psychological assessment which said he had “narcissistic personality traits.” At the time, I had laughed it off, but later I began to see it. 

This guy thought that he was incredibly smart, good looking, and absolutely amazing at his job. He was always bragging about the quality of his work; however, I saw some of his work a couple of times and found it lacking (which I didn’t say, of course). He was always talking about the future – how he had so many offers for jobs (he was unemployed) and how he’d be making well over $300,0000 a year in no time. He surrounded himself with people that he saw as superior (yes, that includes myself – he was always bragging to everyone about how smart and beautiful I was. It was rather embarrassing and over-the-top.) He also showed a surprising lack of empathy – he felt that anxiety was a sign of weakness in others, but when he had anxiety attacks he felt it was uncontrollable rather than a weakness.

Narcissistic personality disorder is one of the disorders that would be dropped if the diagnosis switched to a dimensional rather than cluster approach. 

Because there is a lot of public interest in borderline personality disorder and antisocial / psychopathy, I will mention those Cluster B disorders in another post. 


This is a series of posts summarizing what I’m learning in my Abnormal Psychology course. Much of the information provided comes from reading my James N. Butcher’s textbook Abnormal Psychology. To read the other posts, follow these links: 

The Definition of Abnormal
A History of Abnormal Psychology
Abnormal Psychology in Contemporary Society
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Biology
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Psychology
Frontline: New Asylums
Brave New Films: This is Crazy
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Biological Assessment
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Psychological Assessment
Does the DSM Encourage Overmedication?
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome – The Basics
Panic Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Hoarding and Body Dysmorphic Disorders
Depression – an Overview
Personality Disorders – Clusters and Dimensions
Personality Disorders – Cluster A
Personality Disorders – Cluster B
Personality Disorders – Cluster C
Biological Effects of Stress on Your Body
Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders
Dissociative Disorders
Borderline Personality Disorder
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Paraphilic Disorders
Gender Dysphoria – Homosexuality and Transgender
Anxiety Disorders
Bipolar Disorder – The Basics
Suicide – An Overview

References:


Butcher, James N. Hooley, Jill M. Mineka, Susan. (2014) Chapter 10: Personality Disorders. Abnormal Psychology, sixteenth edition (pp. 328-366). Pearson Education Inc.