What mental abnormalities of the heroes of the Harry Potter saga could be detected by a professional psychologist

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Recent fashion is to analyze not only the motives and values of book characters, but also their mental and psychological problems. In this regard, the Harry Potter saga, full of brightly written, gradually emerging characters, is a real godsend.

Just do not take this analysis too seriously - the real verdict can only be delivered by a specialist after a deep examination.

Severus Snape: severe depression

Rowling is clearly deliberately and carefully prescribing the symptoms of depression from the Potions professor. He does not maintain cleanliness of his body, clothes and his home - which is very common in people with this disease. He does not seem to have an occupation that would bring him pleasure - except for such a habit of sarcastic. Of course, we know that Snape is passionate about potions, but we never see him enjoy doing what he loves.

Not all people with lingering depression look and act like Snape, but in many cases the illness looks like that. Note that the professor has a highly functional form: he is able to provide for himself, behaves generally adequately, does not neglect official duties. Nevertheless, it is obviously very difficult for him, and the need to constantly interact with a large number of not too friendly-minded adolescents worsens the condition of the potion maker - also because it reminds of how the same adolescents bullied him during his school years.

An old psychological trauma makes itself felt when Snape sees one of his longtime tormentors, Sirius Black, or Harry Potter resembles his father, Snape's other tormentor, too much. At such moments, the professor loses its adequacy.

Harry Potter: Impostor Syndrome

The boy-who-survived, growing up, shows the best qualities: learning ability, the ability to be friends, good mind and leadership skills, talent for sports. In addition, according to the description, he looks attractive: a bright appearance, a toned figure, a modest smile. Nevertheless, it constantly seems to him that people sympathize with him in vain and expect more from him than he can give, and this is not only about the victory over Voldemort. Impostor Syndrome is a common psychological problem, especially if the child grew up in constant humiliation and abuse. It affects more women than men, but this does not mean that it does not occur in men.

Ron Weasley: Lowered Self-Esteem

The youngest boy of many brothers, each of whom was distinguished by talent at least in something, "too ordinary" Ron constantly feels underwhelmed. Could play a role and the fact that he got less attention than once - the firstborn and the twins. As a result, he is sensitive to criticism, stupid ridicule and remarks, easily falls into the belief that Harry has ceased to be friends with him - after all, why would you be friends with such a pathetic, "too ordinary" Ron? He also sharply perceives the giftedness of other people as a personal challenge, so at first he reacted negatively to Hermione.

Moreover, Granger, it seems, quite soberly evaluates his fellow student, along with all his shortcomings and advantages - and there are many of the latter, for example, loyalty to family and friends.

Hermione Granger: Excellent Student Syndrome, Lifeguard Syndrome

Hermione is an almost flawless heroine. She is smart, kind, erudite, determined, with high social and emotional intelligence; readily and quickly learns and is not afraid to take the initiative. However, it cannot be said that her life is not overshadowed by psychological problems. It seems that Granger has two syndromes at once that could arise due to the high expectations of her parents regarding her mind and personal qualities - an excellent student syndrome and a lifeguard syndrome.

Hermione is really stressed if she fails to achieve the best possible result - despite the fact that others she willingly forgives imperfections. Moreover, she looks for assignments and tests that she could pass with the best result - even if the challenge is to break school rules. She is quite inherent in flexibility in relation to restrictions, despite the fact that she is sure that the rules exist in this world not to be broken.

In addition, she constantly perceives as her personal responsibility the problems of people, and not only people, around and is eager to solve them. It is very important for her to help others, it is so important that she does not always ask someone else's opinion - and this becomes the cause of a conflict situation. However, Granger is not afraid of conflicts - she knows how to defend her beliefs and resist public pressure.

Peter Pettigrew: problems with personal boundaries

Peter has a nickname "Tail" for a reason: it seems that he is prone to constant merging with someone, and without this he is hardly able to think and act. This means that he has serious problems with personal boundaries. It is difficult to say what was the reason, since we do not know anything about his childhood. But, probably, at one time he betrayed Potter and the company due to the fact that almost everyone kept healthy boundaries in it, including not letting him "stick" - and Voldemort, on the contrary, liked the willingness to give himself up with giblets. Voldemort doesn't respect boundaries at all.

Voldemort: Psychopathic Disorder

Clinical psychopaths do not always kill or even just beat other people, people with psychopathic behavior are not always real clinical psychopaths, but they made a direct case of Voldemort. By nature, which is explained by magic, he is not capable of strong emotional attachments. His behavior could have been corrected by eighteen, but his childhood was held in a too traumatic environment, and the time for compensation and rehabilitation was lost. Even Dumbledore couldn't do anything about it. However, Dumbledore, for all his goodwill and willingness to warm up young men and women with problems, is still not the best teacher.

Albus Dumbledore: Dissocial Personality Disorder

Dumbledore is an outspoken sociopath. He has empathy (he always tries to help “problem” children and even adults!), But he is so smart and he has so many unusual experiences that he seems to have decided not to use the boundaries that society offers, but to establish his own. An elderly wizard is more than prone to manipulating other people, easily lies and hypocrites, ignores ethics, and those around him are very lucky that his values and goals are quite humanistic. Unfortunately, he still constantly creates dangerous situations around himself that could have been avoided - for the sake of solving his own, especially significant in his eyes, tasks.

Rubeus Hagrid: Autism Spectrum Disorder

One of Dumbledore's warmed up troubled youths was Hagrid, a half-human, half-giant with obvious developmental features. Hagrid is smart, especially when it comes to his special interest (which is typical for people with ASD) - all kinds of monsters; at the same time, because of the incredible social awkwardness, the inability to assess this or that situation and the lack of understanding of what others learn to understand without any lessons, he seems stupid. It is not surprising that even under the director's wing he finds himself in social isolation - either on business, or the restless trinity of the main characters who sympathize with him for their own reason, drop into his house on the outskirts.

By the way, it is possible that Hermione is friends with Hagrid because of her lifeguard syndrome - after all, he has so few friends, Ron does not feel so pathetic against the background of the forester, and Harry likes that Hagrid does not expect anything special from him.

Sibyl Trelawney: alcoholism and emotional instability

Another person who received the support of Dumbledore (and hardly only because of the prophecy) is Sibyl Trelawney. Nowhere, of course, is it directly shown that Trelawney is applied to the bottle, but her behavior is very characteristic, so jokes about this topic are constantly circulated among the fans of the saga. It seems that alcoholism is accompanied by the general emotional instability of the soothsayer: it is worth looking at her excessive reactions and, at times, excessive exaltation in the classroom.

Luna Lovegood: Magyphrenic Syndrome

Strictly speaking, magifrenia is not a disease, but a complex of symptoms. A person with metaphysical intoxication, schizophrenic or autistic disorder can suffer from an uncritical belief in unconfirmed "rules of life" or fairy-tale creatures - and it can also be a way to experience stress or just a belief system within which the person grew up. Of course, faith alone is not enough for magifrenia - it is important that “magic” ideas are an obsessive thought, to which a person constantly returns and through which he explains everything around.

Magyphrenic sufferers are easy prey for scammers and cults. Especially cults. Luna Lovegood was very fortunate that she joined Dumbledore's Army and not some sect.

Goldenweed Lokons: Narcissistic Disorder

Narcissism is more than narcissism. A person with narcissistic disorder, on the one hand, is convinced of his exclusivity, endlessly fantasizes about his successes, getting carried away so much that he begins to believe himself. On the other hand, he is acutely experiencing the discrepancy between how he perceives himself and what others can see. "Revealing", which may consist only in the discussion of individual shortcomings, causes aggression in him. To maintain the illusion of his success, the narcissist goes to deception, forgery of documents; may mortgage his house to pretend that it costs him nothing to buy an expensive car or to pay membership fees to a local very prestigious circle of board game lovers.

Zlatopust Lokons (aka Gilderoy Lockhart) publishes books about his practice of fighting dangerous creatures - in fact, attributing to himself the achievements of lesser-known magicians. He enters the class only to enjoy universal adoration. He constantly distributes advice from above to other teachers, hardly understanding their subject matter. It also turns out that when someone discovers Lokons' incompetence, he uses the spell of oblivion - which, in general, is violence against a person.

Gellert Grindelwald: megalomania

Voldemort's predecessor is somewhat similar to Lokons - with the difference that he has huge plans to reorganize the world and he is a really strong wizard. It is known that Hitler served as a model for Gellert's personality, but Rowling was very creative in reworking the original into a magical copy. Although Grindelwald also did not receive a professional education, he still showed talent; in addition, Gellert was handsome, which added to his confidence. Gellert is obsessed with the idea that wizards should rule the world, and he himself should be at the head of them - because only he clearly sees where this world should go. He also considers himself entitled to use violence and shamelessly tortures his younger brother with a spell of his best friend.

Neville Longbottom: PTSD

Longbottom is characterized by high anxiety, self-doubt, problems with memory and concentration. Fortunately, his friends and some educators are constantly trying to support him, but this does not negate the fact that Neville seems to be seriously suffering from PTSD. And no wonder: in early childhood, he was the victim of systematic violence. Neville's great-uncle constantly put the boy in life-threatening, frightening situations, hoping to provoke a surge in magical abilities and prove that they did not grow a squib in their family. Once it succeeded, but in such circumstances that if Neville were really a squib, he would have died - he was thrown out of the window upside down.

Vincent Crabbe: intellectual disabilities

Crabbe is Draco Malfoy's cousin (no wonder, all pureblood wizards are related in one way or another), and Draco seems to not just let Vincent follow him with his tail. Crabbe has clearly slowed down intellectual development, he studies with great difficulty (perhaps, mastering the program with the help of Malfoy and Goyle, with whom he spends all his time) and rarely makes independent decisions. In addition, Vincent demonstrates what is called eunuchoid syndrome - he is tall, very plump, with a too thin voice. Probably due to constant marriages within a small, in general, community of old magic families, genetic breakdowns accumulate in families, and Vincent "won" a severe form of Klinefelter's syndrome in this genetic lottery.

Remus Lupine: Bipolar Affective Disorder

Lupine is a werewolf, and this disease, judging by the symptoms, is akin to bipolar disorder, when a person goes from depression to a manic phase (which can be expressed, for example, in an uncontrolled increase in aggression) and vice versa. It's a shame that Lupine only gets his medications on a full moon. His usual very depressed state clearly also needs medical treatment.

George and Fred Weasley: Twin Syndrome, ADHD

George and Fred seem to love more than anything else when they are indistinguishable; they finish phrases one after the other and, it seems, never move away from each other at all. They have twin syndrome, having a twin is very important for their self-identification, which in the future could give serious problems in terms of romantic relationships. Perhaps in childhood they even had their own, only for the two of them, language of communication.

Also, Fred and George are obviously hyperactive and attention deficit. This is not to say that they are generally unteachable, but school discipline weighs on them and, probably, hooligan antics are not only a manifestation of a sense of humor, but also a way to relieve the gigantic tension that has accumulated during the lesson. Contrary to popular belief, people with ADHD do well with intelligence, which the Weasley twins demonstrate by becoming successful businessmen and inventors.

To close the subject of the Weasleys, it can be noted that their only sister, the youngest child in the family, seems to have emotional deprivation: the parents could no longer pay much attention to her, and the brothers did not find it necessary, and Ginny lacked simple human contact with loved ones. …

Who is healthy?

Most of Rowling's characters demonstrate the effects of psychological trauma. And yet, some heroes seem to live without serious psychological problems and mental disorders. These are, for example, Vernon and Dudley Dursley, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, Molly and Arthur Weasley, Minerva McGonagall and most of the other professors. As you can see, this does not prevent them from sometimes doing stupid things, losing their temper or behaving frankly unethical, simply because they have unpleasant views on life.

You can analyze not only the features of the behavior of the characters: What does Tatyana's letter say, how old she was, and whom did Pushkin kill in the person of Lensky?.