Depression and Harry in OotP

[Kate Harding]

No: HPFGUIDX 110722

My word, this thread is getting scholarly! Maybe we should all think 
about collaborating on a paper for Accio 2005.


Brenda:
> This cognitive view described above was originally proposed by 
> psychiatrist Aaron Beck.


psyche:
Yes indeed, god bless him. I would have been in a right muddle 
without cognitive techniques. Thanks for the details and references - 
my psychology degree is 10 year further away than yours, and I can't 
put my finger on relevant studies etc.


Brenda:
> Of course, these are merely psychogenic factors for mental 
> disorders. <snip>
> Well I'll wait till we scan Harry's brain and see if there is any 
> significant tissue loss in his fronto-limbic cortex (around 
> anterior cingulated and orbito-frontal cortex)! :D


psyche:
Interestingly, you and I seem to come at this from different angles, 
presumably because you're coming at it from the neuroscience side, 
while I'm coming at it more from the psychotherapeutic side. You seem 
to see the cognitive processes as a kind of shadow play projected 
over the 'real' neurological processes. I see the neurological 
processes being merely the chemical results of the cognitive and 
emotional problems.

The distinction doesn't really matter, of course, because the two 
processes run in parallel, so the direction of causation is 
irrelevant (oh dear, the philosopher coming out in me). I'm only 
really commenting because I wouldn't want people to get the 
impression that the mentally ill are somehow medically or genetically 
a different or inferior kind of person - anyone can suffer 
depression, two famous examples being Churchill and Lincoln. (I know 
you weren't implying that, but I really want to be clear, because 
there's so much stigma attached to these illnesses).


Brenda:
> What I have realized, after composing this long and `encyclopedic' 
> post, is that Harry is more likely exhibiting very early stages of 
> depression.


psyche:
I think the idea of 'early stages' is a bit of a red herring, because 
it's defined by what happens next. He may recover, or he may get 
worse, depending on his choices and the reactions of those around 
him. But if he recovers, that doesn't mean he didn't have depression. 
Simply that it didn't progress to be a *severe* case. For example, 
the fact that I was lucky enough to realise I had a problem and get 
help before I reached the suicidal stage, doesn't mean that I didn't 
have depression. Perhaps the mild/moderate/severe distinction is a 
better way of looking at it. People can go from mild to severe, or 
severe to mild and then all the way out.

Most people who go through a patch of depression as a result of life 
events recover as those events are lifted. I think Harry's gone a 
little past this point - I think his depression has begun to feed on 
itself. But I don't think he's gone any further than I did, which 
means he can still recover fast with the right help. The problem is 
that he doesn't know he needs help, because he doesn't know he's 
depressed, and he's not talking to anyone about it. I may be wrong, 
though - perhaps he'll come out of it as he finds ways to *do* 
something about his situation and about LV.


Brenda:
> Although I 
> must ask you, Psyche, where did you find evidences of depression in 
> PoA? Or you just meant the chills when the Dementors drew near?


psyche:
Sorry if I gave the wrong impression - I didn't mean to imply that 
Harry was depressed in PoA. I don't think I remember him showing any 
signs of depression before OotP. I was just talking about the 
dementors. For example, that feeling they produce, that you 'will 
never be happy again', is very characteristic of depression. Jo has 
said that the dementors were 'about depression' rather than just 
fear. That's all I was talking about - that her writing of their 
effects was informed by her experience of depression.


Brenda: 
> It is very 
> much possible that Harry is in fact starting to suffer from what 
> Muggles call `clinical depression'; however if he is it is still 
> very primitive and he will fight it without realizing. His much-
> returned selfless and sacrificial love from friends and others will 
> help him through it.


psyche:
This seems like a fair analysis. Although I would be worried about 
his tendency to blame himself and his unwillingness to talk about his 
feelings - both could keep him down there longer than he needs to be.


Dreadnought:
> It's normal to be depressed if bad things are happening to you. 
> Depressive illness (not the best term, perhaps, but I don't want to 
> get into semantics) is when you are depressed even when nothing bad 
> is happening to you.


psyche:
Firstly, thanks, Dreadnought for your really well-argued post! It's 
reassuring to know that others have had the same intuition about this 
as I have. 

I think your distinction is a helpful way of looking at it (with the 
proviso that we're looking at a continuum). The question then is, to 
paraphrase Brenda, whether Harry's natural depression following the 
death of Cedric etc and his long dark night (summer) of the soul at 
the Dursleys will alleviate naturally or go on to develop into a more 
prolonged problem. It didn't just go away after being rescued from 
the Dursleys - he continued to have depressive feelings, and 
continues to have bouts of it throughout the book. Probably too early 
to tell whether he is recovering or not.

psyche