Ok, Muggles, sorry I’ve been gone for so long (not that I have any followers). I won’t bore you with tales of how busy my last semester of college was, but suffice it say that it was, indeed, busy.  Now, I’ve combed Chamber of Secrets twice and not to much avail for finding psychological things to discuss here. It was hinted at that Harry might be having auditory hallucinations which could suggest schizophrenic or schizoaffective symptoms, but as we know, the voice was actually a snake and only Harry could hear him because he’s a Parselmouth (can talk to snakes, though hopefully if you’re reading a Harry Potter blog, you already know that).  

The second thing I can talk about, but not in length, is our first hint about what exactly is wrong with Tom Riddle, or Lord Voldemort. He tells Harry that he can be very charming when he needs to be, but we know that he can obviously turn that off.  He proves himself to have been a manipulative teenager in the memory he shows Harry.  I’ll talk more about what all that means in a later entry after we know a little bit more about Riddle.  Next big entry will focus on Prisoner of Azkaban, which is one of my favorite from the series.

It’s no secret that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the the most light-hearted book of the series, so I was somewhat concerned about finding psychological issues to write about from this book. I needn’t have worried though. I remember the first time I read Sorcerer’s Stone. I was in fourth grade and the books were a fairly new discovery in the US. For some reason when I was reading it, the idea that Harry had to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs did not bother me like it does now. Come on now, a cupboard under the stairs. That’s insanity. Also, it’s child abuse! This thought did not occur to me until fairly recently. I had definitely already been in college for a year and a half when this struck me as I was rereading the series for the seventh or eighth time. I’m fairly certain that if child services found out you were making an 11 year old live in the cupboard under the stairs, he would be removed from your home, especially if there was another child in the house that you were spoiling rotten. It’s neglect and child endangerment. Living the first 11 years of your life being told and treated like you’re worthless is without a doubt psychologically damaging. Just some of the implications of this are low self-esteem, underdevelopment of social skills, malnourishment, development of major depression, and more. Kids are tough, though, and Harry definitely found a way to deal with it: dissociation. He severed himself from emotion about his situation. He found ways to entertain himself (such as talking to snakes and poking fun at Dudley) and never gave up hope that his situation could get better. Hagrid showed up just in time, though.

I thought that I would explain the title of my blog to those who may not be as Harry Potter savvy as others. Legilimency is first introduced in Order of the Phoenix and we learn that it is the ability of some wizards to delve into the minds of other wizards. I thought that since I’ll be looking at the psychology of these characters, and therefore into their minds, the use of this word would be appropriate. Legilimens is the spell used to perform Legilimency and it is also what wizards who are skilled at Legilimency are called. Adversely, the skill of blocking Legilimens from entering one’s mind is called Occlumency and those who are skilled at this form of magic are called Occlumens.

For those who like to know the origin of some of these spells and words found in Harry Potter, it has been suggested that the etymology of the word Legilimens comes from Latin (my favorite dead language!). Legere = to read, mens = mind

Isn’t J.K. Rowling clever? I think so.

This is the interim project I wish I had thought to contract back in October. I decided I would like to do it anyway. This is the intersection of two things that I love. I will say it and I will not be ashamed. I love Harry Potter. I love it. I find the books fascinating and a nice escape from reality when I need it. I also love psychology. It’s my major. I think the human mind and what it is capable of is incredible. Sometimes psychology can be a mystery, but that’s part of the reason I love it. It is always changing and there is always something new to discover. I am particularly captivated by psychological disorders. Having read the Harry Potter series several times over, I have started to notice psychological themes and hints of some disorders in some characters. So here’s what this blog is about: the psychology of the Harry Potter series. I will track the psychological development of main characters through each book and touch on psychological and sociological issues present in the series. Enjoy!