Of Dementors, Dark Lords and Depression (Lumos 2006 Material)

Of Dementors, Dark Lords and Depression: A Study of Mental Illness in Harry Potter by Kimberly DeCina and JoSelle Vanderhooft Well, I have done with all my chores of moving for the present and am back to writing. Last night while driving an absolutely packed minivan from clearing out my WV room and bringing the stuff up here for staging the move to NYC I listened to 2 more talks from Lumos that I wasn't able to make it to at the conference (Sumara, if you're reading this, don't worry - after I crank out these 2 posts I am hopping over to the Pirates comments thread ... it's good stuff I'll be adding there. And Travis, don't worry getting to Dr. John's PoMo realism talk is definitely still big on my list ... but this one should interest you as well because these two focused, among other things, on Voldemort as Anti-Social Personality Disorder). Anyway, DeCina and Vanderhooft went through 3 main "mental illness" categories in the series. I'll discuss Voldy as the personality disorder a little later in this post, along with the main "meaning" hinge point I think is involved. First though, they went through narcissism and two forms of depression. First, in regards to narcissism they noted that Gilderoy Lockheart has all 9 categorical symptoms (I think they said you only need 5 or 7 to be technically diagnosed) - accompanied by a plethora of textual evidence from our well known heel in CS. As far as depression, they noted the difference between "clinical" or severe depression episode -- which are usually distinctly isolated occurrences, and they noted the publicized incidents of Rowling having in connection with the end of her first marriage and the death of her mother -- and Dysthymic Depression ("This refers to a low to moderate level of depression that persists for at least two years, and often longer" - I pulled that from this site and from what I remember from listening to the talk last night, DeCina and Vanderhooft used this word for word ... I suspect it is from the standard "manual of diagnosis" they cited in the talk.) As an instance of the severe episode they noted Harry's response to the Dementors in POA. They compared the use of chocolate to the use of anti-depressant medication, noting the need for avoiding the "just increase the dosage" syndrome and for therapy alongside medication, a role (the therapist) which they saw Lupin as fulfilling. Oddly, although they noted Lupin's experience as a werewolf as putting him in a good stance to be the therapist for Harry, they made a point of saying that they do not see Lupin's magical malady as a mental illness instance, and this is a place I disagree with them, especially when we see "what Lupin believes about himself" in HBP in regards to his capability to have a stable relationship with Tonks, but the point here is one that really comes out more in the Voldy material below, and which, while I do disagree with these presenters here, I don't see it as as major of an instance as the one with Voldy, but part of it comes from what I would say is an overly "realist" reading. They do seem very knowledgeable and respectable in their field and were saying Lupin does not fit the standardly listed categories. But I think the magical malady does represent a disorder, maybe a more "general" way of looking at psychic illness and a key point is how he responds to it ... he does not respond as does Greyback ... in other words he makes a choice. He is afflicted with a condition that was beyond his control and renders him beyond reason when it hits and he suffers some "debilitating" insecurities with regards to Tonks - although they have actually talked about it, which may put his insecurities in a different class than the diffidence that many suffer in real life -- and prejudice from Umbridge and others. I believe Rowling is making a point about how you choose to cope with these psychological matters. Maybe it is that these ladies are saying Lupin is not "incapacitated" enough to qualify, but as they note about Snape as dysthymic depressive (which introduces that part of their talk) ... dysthymic depression does not really "rob" the person of free choice. They had a lot of good textual evidence of Snape's anti-social tendencies and his irascibility and lack of capability for healthy mirth. Although the ladies did not think of Lupin as having a real-world psychological disorder, I found the close juxtaposition in their talk of these 3 characters (Harry, Lupin, Snape) interesting because Snape has a relationship of antipathy towards both of the other two, which is one of the reasons I would class Lupin in the set of Rowlingian themes clustered around "psychological struggles." Voldemort Hopefully I can pull off what I want to say here concisely here. Like I said, DeCina and Vanderhooft classed Voldy as Anti-Social Personality disorder and they did a pretty good job of drawing out the symptoms. He had a few to spare when looking at the list of classifiable symptoms and how many you need to be officially diagnosed. Where I disagreed with the presenters was when they touched on Rowling's comments on Voldy making choices that he is responsible for. They noted that personality disorders are a much deeper issue than depression (they are often life-long and begin in child-hood) and do, in the real world, render some incapable of controlling certain of their choices to a level of whether or not they can be held morally culpable. (BTW, this is precisely the issue in an article in the encyclopedia I was just helping edit, the entry on annulments ... the fact that a lot of research progress has been made into personality disorders in recent times and that the Roman Curia takes this into consideration in setting precedences for the world's annulment tribunals on how the growing phenomenon of such disorders affects people's ability even to make committed choices, etc. The article was written by a retired canon lawyer from New York named Monsignor George Graham, and was really thorough and well written.) I think that, as literature, the works are primarily dwelling on spiritual themes, or at the very least that they are not limited to "realist" correspondence to "psychology" as such (or other realms of study and practice related to real-world anthropological concerns). The thing I want to emphasize here, though, is that the two are inter-related but should not be conflated. There are evil choices that people can make, i.e., sins. There is also the presence and effect of evil in all the aspects of the world. Physical malady is an example of this, and so are psychic/psychological maladies (as I heard one priest say once, "I am not responsible for my addiction ... but I am responsible for my recovery" - in other words, responsible for how I respond to it, how actively I seek out the help needed, etc). In the end I think the primary role of literature as a symbolist endeavor is one of exposition of the truth that informs our thinking and choices, but because the psychological and spiritual inter-relate in the human person, literature also touches very poignantly on psychological and emotional issues. (I personally believe they inter-relate so much because the human spirit and the human psyche are the same thing as regards substance -- which is to say that I am "bipartite" -- but I am also very wary of defining the totality of the human person with terms such as "parts" into which a person can be "broken down" ... but as far as the "bipartite vs tripartite" debate I come closest to a "bipartite" ... but there is a ton of room there for debate on the matter). A lot of this comes also to what the language shows us. "Psychology" comes from the Greek "psyche" for "soul." Alchemy is all about the "Golden Soul", but it is a spiritual discipline about spiritual transformation. Alchemy and psychology are like the two approaches from the two things (physical nature and spiritual nature) that are wed in the beautiful mystery of the human person and human soul. And I definitely think the spiritual level of alchemy (and therefore the culpability of sin) is a main focus in Rowling's work ... which is just simply to say that Voldemort is a literary character, and not a real world person with the disorder. Well, not extremely concise, but I think I got the main point in I wanted to. Side Note: As concerns psychology, I really liked that in Looking for God in Harry Potter, Granger went into the whole medieval thing of the "vegetative, sensate and intellectual" types of soul. I really liked that in CS Rowling seems to me to have a great image that shows the importance of the distinction and the qualitative difference of the human soul, while keeping in view the need to respect all living things. The image of the mandrakes was criticized by some of the "Harry Haters" as an acceptance of abortion (or so I heard) because they look like babies but it is all right to kill them. I think that in their "humanoid" features they represent the dignity of even the vegetative soul, but in the fact that it is all right to kill them and use them for the good of those human beings who have been petrified they represent the qualitative difference between human souls and the other two, lower types. PS Travis, I'm going to try to look at the data CD and see if their talk is on there (I accidentally placed my computer bag that has the CD in it in a difficult place to get to but I'll be re-arranging stuff in the next couple days and have it back out), and also trying to poke around Lumos' site and see if they are offering that data CD for sale to the public or if there is a way to get it, or try to figure out if I am allowed to put up the PDF file online as long as I am not selling it for money (Pauli might know more about this, the whole proprietary and copyright thing, since I think they consider submitting the paper and having it accepted as being "published" ... but if I am allowed to do it I would like to, especially if they are not publicly selling the CD, because I think a lot of you would really enjoy just reading the papers - sometimes in the talks people had to cut points for time, and it would be good to be able to read all the stuff they had) ... If they are selling it, I highly recommend buying it - a lot of good stuff, with their footnotes and bibliographic material and all that good stuff for research (when I pull it out I'll try to put up a list here of the talks that definitely made it onto the CD.)