Skip Navigation Link

Northern Wyoming Mental Health Center Inc.

Looking for Help?
Click Here for the Office Location Nearest You

Review of "The Outsider"

By Nathaniel Lachenmeyer
Bantam Doubleday Dell, 2000
Review by Lloyd A. Wells, Ph.D., M.D. on Apr 10th 2001
The OutsiderThis remarkable book is dedicated to homeless people in New York City, which says a lot about it. It begins with a quotation from Long Day's Journey Into Night, which says more about it: "None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever." And it quotes Charles Lachenmeyer, the book's protagonist, over and over again, from a note he wrote to his son, the author: "There is never any reason to give up."

Nathaniel Lachenmeyer, the author, is the son of the late Charles Lachenmeyer, and, as a child, Nathaniel idealized his father. But in this book he presents him to us honestly, showing his father's serious flaws and tragic later life. Charles nevertheless, partly because of his son's idealization, seems larger than life in this volume. There are ironies upon ironies in this book One of the most prominent is the reaction of the young Nathaniel and his father to a psychotic homeless man in New York City.

Charles Lachenmeyer had a difficult childhood; his mother was simultaneously abandoning and controlling, and was a religious zealot. He was a brilliant student, earned a Ph.D. in sociology, wrote a few books, and rose to associate professor. But he also had poor social skills, had difficulty keeping his academic positions, and was a very heavy drinker. In early middle age he became very delusional and paranoid. This syndrome, diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia, led to the loss of his marriage and his career, and he and his son became alienated as well. It is ironic that in graduate school, before his syndrome began, he did research on family dynamics in schizophrenia.

After Nathaniel Lachenmeyer learned that his father had died, he also learned that he had been homeless for a time, partly to escape the control of civil commitments in two states. The younger Lachenmeyer reconstructs his father's life in this book, and he does so with considerable success. While the explicit narrative concerns the father's' life with schizophrenia and alcoholism, there is a great deal about the son. How does a pre-teen make sense of his beloved father's delusional ravings about his equally beloved mother? How does he come to terms with not having sent his father money, when asked, or with seeing him, as an adult, but not introducing himself? There is guilt in this book, along with sadness and rage, and all of these are comprehensible to the reader. The author writes sparsely and evocatively.

In the eyes of most people, Charles Lachenmeyer lost everything. But in the view of his son, corroborated by many who knew the father, in spite of severe alcoholism and an extraordinary delusional system, he retained his sense of self, a sense of humor about his dealings with the court system, and a sense of indomitability in his efforts to find an academic post.

This book has many positive features, which I have stressed above. Negative features are minor and, for me, included wanting more information on some of the clinical points of the illness and especially its apparently major affective component, and more on the severity of the alcoholism. These are trivial in the context of the book.

I found this book both sad and inspiring - sad in terms of the life course and repeated humiliation of a protagonist I grew to admire, and inspiring for the example of Charles Lachenmeyer's indomitability in spite of all the humiliations, indignities, and terrible clinical course. One comes away from this book with the idea that the chronically mentally ill, many of them homeless, should not be trivialized and ignored as is too often the case in our society and among its healers.

I strongly recommend this excellent book.


    Lloyd A. Wells is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinicin Minnesota. He has a particular interest in philosophical issues related to psychiatry and in the logic used in psychiatric discourse.

Share This

Resources

  • Articles

  • Questions and Answers

    • What Can I do to Help?
    • BPD ? and Meth
    • Am I Crazy?
    • I See and Hear Things, What's Wrong With Me?
    • Anxious and Depressed Son
    • 20 Year Old Viewed Child Porn, Computer Taken by Police
    • PTSD vs. DID
    • Im Scared I'm Mad
    • My Little Girl
    • Is Psychosis Curable?
    • 110 more
      • What To Do?
      • Hearing Things?
      • What Is The Difference Between Mental Illness and Depression?
      • Violent Brother
      • High Anxiety - J. - May 10th 2010
      • Paranoid Schizophrenia Diagnosis
      • I Need Help Desperately - Jim
      • In A Bad Situation
      • Am I Schizophrenic?
      • Extreme Psychopathy/sociopathy?
      • Five year old daughter hears voices
      • Should I be worried?
      • A young adult needs to find help, but cant find it.
      • Major Depressive Disorder Severe with Psychotic Features
      • Am I Bipolar? Could be Medical
      • my boyfriend, does he need help?
      • voice in my head
      • dating and the stigma of mental health.
      • MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER? SCHIZO? BI-POLAR?
      • Deranged father
      • Depression? Bi-Polar? Personality Disorder?
      • Hearing Voices
      • response appreciated..
      • will my husband still love me after he comes out of major depression?
      • How do you get a 81 yr woman to get help when she is in strong denial??
      • Insanity by Alcohol?
      • Am I just a bad person
      • How to live with a depressed person
      • My friend needs help that I can\'t give,can you help me?
      • Rate the Public Mental Health Hospitals by State
      • Depression/dysautonomia?
      • Should I see a different psychiatrist?
      • I think my mom has mental health issues or alzheimers
      • 10 year old dreaming of killing
      • preteen bad behavior
      • how can i control morbid jealousy
      • Mother's Personality Disorder
      • Pregnant and Possibly Schizophrenic
      • They Never Find Anything Wrong
      • Disordered Family Member Behavior
      • Requirements for Hospitalization
      • Stalked
      • Friend's Downward Spiral
      • Stepson With Personality Disorder
      • Wading Through Mud
      • Hearing Voices
      • I Refuse
      • Delusional Friend
      • Harassment Aftermath
      • Delusional Friend
      • Lying About Illness
      • Ocassional Delusions
      • Blossoming Paranoia?
      • In Love With A Diagnosed Sociopath
      • Biological Problem
      • How Can I Help My Friend?
      • Going Crazy
      • Attachment Disorder
      • Disclosure #2: How Do I Tell My Boyfriend About My Illnesses
      • Serious Problems
      • Are Some Patients Hopeless?
      • Stalker
      • Three Million People In One Skin
      • Withdrawn Brother
      • How To Explain Psychosis To A Boyfriend?
      • Paranoia
      • Schizophrenia?
      • Would Problems Be Very Obvious?
      • Feeling Fragile
      • Pornography # 2: Should I Go Or Should I Stay?
      • Getting Paranoid And Delusional
      • Lack of Identity
      • In Emotional Disrepair
      • Am I Paranoid?
      • Mental Illness vs. Insanity
      • She Won't Get Help
      • Racing Thoughts
      • Reactive Attachment Disorder
      • Histrionic Sister-in-Law
      • Long-Distance Support
      • What Is A Delusion?
      • Early Experiences As Described By A Self-Diagnosed Schizoid
      • Is This Depression?
      • Paranoia
      • What Is Wrong With Me?
      • Father In Romania
      • Liar and Kleptomaniac
      • How Does Childhood Affect Us?
      • Paranoid Boyfriend
      • Encopresis
      • I'm Going Crazy
      • Paranoid Dad
      • Talking Dice
      • Avoiding Her Parents
      • Obsession
      • Abusive Husband
      • Stalker
      • Unreality
      • Self-Medication
      • Agoraphobia?
      • Somatization and Hypochondrias
      • De-Realized
      • Paranoia?
      • What is ECT?
      • Fighting Stigma
      • Body Numbness
      • What's the Diagnosis?
      • For The Health Class In Australia
      • No One Believes Me...
      • Am I Crazy?
  • Book & Media Reviews

    • 50 Signs of Mental Illness
    • A Beautiful Mind
    • A Lethal Inheritance
    • Addiction and Change
    • Addiction Recovery Tools
    • Beating the Blues
    • Brave New Brain
    • Capture
    • Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders
    • Complete Mental Health
    • 56 more
      • Critical Psychiatry
      • Cultures of Neurasthenia
      • DSM-IV-TR Mental Disorders
      • First Person Accounts of Mental Illness and Recovery
      • Grieving Mental Illness
      • I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
      • Infectious Madness
      • Integrative Mental Health Care
      • Kundalini Yoga Meditation for Complex Psychiatric Disorders
      • Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry
      • Life at the Bottom
      • Living with Schizophrenia
      • Mad Pride
      • Mary Barnes
      • Masters of the Mind
      • Mental Health
      • Mind Fixers
      • More, Now, Again
      • New Hope for People with Depression
      • Nothing to Hide
      • On the Edge of Darkness
      • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
      • Out of the Shadows
      • Overcoming Depersonalization Disorder
      • Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors
      • People Like Ourselves
      • Personality Disorder: Temperament or Trauma?
      • Prozac and the New Antidepressants
      • Psychopathology
      • Quitting the Nairobi Trio
      • Recovery in Mental Illness
      • Refusing Care
      • Relative Stranger
      • Rethinking Mental Health and Disorder
      • Rethinking the Sociology of Mental Health
      • Self-Taught and Outsider Art
      • Slackjaw
      • Stop Walking on Eggshells
      • Straight Talk about Your Child's Mental Health
      • The American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Psychiatry
      • The Eden Express
      • The Healing Power of Pets
      • The Hillside Diary and Other Writings
      • The Last Asylum
      • The Outsider
      • The Savage Girl
      • The Talking Cure
      • The Wisdom in Feeling
      • This is Madness Too
      • Treating Affect Phobia
      • Treating Chronic and Severe Mental Disorders
      • Treatment and Rehabilitation of Severe Mental Illness
      • Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health
      • What's Normal?
      • [email protected]
      • Winnie
  • Videos

    • Mental Health and LGBTQ+
    • Recovering from mental illness with dignity
    • Plan For Mental Illness this Holiday Season
    • Building Bridges Between Child & Adult Mental Health Systems
    • Why delayed onset of mental illness? Genes impact suspect brain areas late
    • Mental Health After Age 60
    • When to Seek Counseling for Your Mental Health Video
    • 10 Common Warning Signs of a Mental Health Condition in Teens and Young Adults
    • Ask the Doctor--Exercise and Mental Health
    • The Reality of Caregiving and Mental Health Conditions
    • 16 more
      • Liver Disease and Anxiety and Depression
      • 5 Ways Technology Can Complement Mental Health Services
      • Thomas Insel: Toward a new understanding of mental illness
      • Mental health for all by involving all
      • Why are mental disorders often associated with creation?
      • Let's Talk About Mental Illness
      • Beating Mental Illness
      • Ending the Stigma of Mental Illness
      • What Is Stigma?
      • #StrongerThanStigma - Wayne Brady: Why I Waited to Talk About My Depression
      • #StrongerThanStigma - Ben Scrivens: Why I Started Talking About Mental Health
      • Understanding the Biology of Mental Illness
      • The stigma of mental illness
      • "Crazy" Girl– On Surviving and Thriving with Mental Illness
      • What is Mental Health?
      • Altering the Course: First Episode Psychosis Intervention