Sam doesn’t have NPD. I don’t like him either but saying he has NPD is inaccurate. I usually agree with your Psych commentary but that reblog you did is way off.

luxshine:

squirrelsan:

samanddeanunited:

squirrelsan:

lovethediseasedkillerpuppy:

Did you even read the title of that post? Covert narcism. And the op even said in tags they weren’t saying Sam has NPD they were saying more likely DNP. There’s a difference.

DNP is merely reflective of NPD but the person’s symptoms are less severe. Would I dx Sam with NPD? No, absolutely not. But I sure as hell would say he was a good fit for covert narcism/DNP. 

Passive aggressiveness, overly sensitive, air of superiority, lack of empathy, self-obsessed, trouble genuinely connecting w ppl or maintaining relationships smugness…does this sound familiar? Now if you’re a Sam fan you’d argue he has any of these but these are signs of a covert narcist. 

Clearly these are people who have no psych background and no idea what we’re talking about. My post couldn’t have been clearer.

Sam doesn’t remotely fit covert narcissism either. Sam doesn’t display any of these traits. I’m gonna need some specific convincing examples of that. You can’t just claim he has these traits without backing it up. Especially since @drama-mamma-j who does have a background in psychology had a rebuttal to this post which went completely ignored. If you’re going to make a post giving a character a mental illness be prepared to back it up. Don’t be surprised if it gets criticism. 

I honestly don’t see the point since
you are clearly a Sam Stan, and most anything I say will likely only
enrage you further. But if you must know, my problem with
@drama-mama-j was that she clearly misunderstood what covert
narcissism is and even after several clarifications insisted I was
claiming NPD, when I’d already said I wasn’t, both in the original
post, and in my response to her. Once it became clear that her blind
rage would further no more discussion, I really had nothing more to
say to her. How often do I have to repeat myself, after all?

And if she does have a background in
psychology—yes, I do as well, as do several others who agree with
me that Sam is a decent example of covert narcissism in fiction—then
she should know that covert narcissism and DNP, are milder forms than
the clinical NPD, and in fact that the theory deviates from the
original psychoanalytic root of Freudian narcissism from which it’s
derived. The discussion is a modern one, that exists in the psych community, but outside of the
DSM (for now, there is quite a bit of advocacy for changing that).
She should have taken my analysis as intended, rather than yelling
I’d made claims I have not and then trying to shame me over her
misinterpretation. Once the name calling began, I admittedly lost all
interest or hope for civil discussion.

It does not surprise me that you do not
see these traits in Sam, because interpretation is, after all, a
major difference between many factions of the fandom. Basically, we are reading the text differently. That said, if
you are honestly interest in why I read Sam as such, I’m happy to
tell you.

Much of what bothers me about Sam’s behavior are all of the instances of emotional-blackmail we see from Sam. In trying to make
sense of why he would engage in such behavior, what I found was that
90% of the time, it was tied to perceived or direct criticism, or an
active effort on his part to avoid critique of his behavior.
Whenever, Sam is confronted about his behavior directly, his
responses are…inappropriate. For example, the rage he shows in S4E2
at the mere implication that he—a professed addict—might be
tempted when directly exposed to his drug of choice. Or for another
example, how he continually hurls “accusations” of “you don’t
trust me!” as if he were being wronged, while he is in the midst of
deceiving the person who’s questioned, or just after his deceptions have
come to light. It’s unreasonable to expect, much less demand trust at
this point, and yet Sam appears wholly unaware of this. Almost as if
he doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t be trusted, despite his own
tendency to be untrustworthy.

Then there is Sam’s seeming
discounting of the knowledge he has, in lieu of believing a much more
flattering falsity. For example, Sam, even without the copious warnings
from his friends, had more than enough information about demon powers
and demon blood, especially in regards to their plans for him, to
know he ought to avoid it. And yet he rushed right toward it instead.
He pits himself in a battle of wills with the surpernatural because
(as he often says) he wants to prove/believe he can overcome it, but when he does this he is blind to those who will
suffer when he inevitably fails, not because he is actually
inadequate, but because he should never have put himself in that
position in the first place. Sam has acted blind to the ways his
behavior affects those around him in other ways as well and is generally
unapologetic about it afterward. Him advocating for killing Nancy for
example, convincing a man to sell his soul, opening hell gates,
thereby releasing hordes of demons onto earth, pulling a clinically
unstable man back into hunting so soon after being released from the
asylum, ect.

There are a myriad of examples of this
type of thinking and behavior. The post I made is actually just a
precursor to a much longer meta on the subject (likely several). If you are
interested, please stay tuned.

We can see it as early as in the pilot where Sam has absolutely no empathy towards the husband of the MOW or the VOW, and actually weaponizes Dean’s trauma about Mary against his brother. Because he thinks he’s right and everyone else is wrong. Later on, still in season 1, we see that Sam only empathizes with the VOW that he thinks are in a situation similar to his own (even if they aren’t, as in Bugs) and that no amount of real evidence that John is proud of him (John talked to strangers about Sam,not about Dean) convinces him that John loves him.  Plus, he gives Dean about 3 ultimatums (Emotional blackmail) just in season 1 alone. 

This is why I do the tally on my rewatch, because that way, I have numbers for these kind of arguments.