Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist nor do I have a completed degree in psychology. I wrote this paper for my university abnormal psychology course.
Note: The bolded paragraphs are the in-text proof from Harry Potter for each PTSD criteria if you just want to read that portion.
The Harry Potter series are some of the most popular children’s books ever written, but that doesn’t mean that J.K. Rowling shied away from mature topics. Although she never explicitly states that any of her characters are dealing with a mental disorder, there is plenty of evidence that Harry Potter has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
In the fifth book, Harry Potter is a fifteen year-old boy and a fifth year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His parents were murdered by Lord Voledort when he was one year-old, and has since lived with his aunt, uncle and cousin, who treated Harry very poorly growing up: forcing him to live in a cupboard, feeding him scraps, not allowing him to ask questions about his parents, lying to him about their deaths, and his cousin bullying and beating him up. At eleven, Harry finds out he is a wizard and goes to the british wizarding boarding school, Hogwarts (Rowling, 1999). Harry faces many difficult and arguably truamic things over his first three years at Hogwarts, but in his fourth year he is entered into a dangerous student tournament. During the final task of which, Harry and his fellow Hogwarts classmate and friend, Cedric Diggery, are transported to a graveyard where Voledmort is waiting for them. Voledmort kills Cedric because he has no use for him; he was simply “the spare.” Voledmort then restrains Harry, uses his blood in a magic potion to return to power, and then forces young Harry to duel him to the death. During this duel, Harry has the turoturing curse placed on him, sees the spirits of his dead parents and friend, and only narrowly escapes with his life (Rowling, 2002).
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which starts in the summer over a month after the night in the graveyard, readers start to see Harry express abnormal behavior. He excessively worries about Voldemort and startles easily at noises. He is also not able to sleep due to the recurring nightmares about Cedric’s death. Even after he is reunited with his friends in the wizarding world, he continues to feel distanced from them and hides things from them when he used to tell them everything. The clearest change in Harry’s behavior is his angry outbursts, directed at friends and enemies alike. He continually has them in class despite landing himself weeks of detention which is literal torture (he is forced to cut the words “I must not tell lies” into his hand repeatedly) and causes him to miss his quidditch (wizard sport) practices which he loves. These behaviors are clearly maladaptive, causing harm to him physically (the detentions) as well as mentally. His lack of sleep causes him to be tired nearly every day, making it hard to focus on his school work. His excessive worry and distancing from friends causes Harry a lot of personal distress. This all doesn’t allow him to enjoy his time at Hogwarts as he usually does. Even in the wizarding world, his behavior is not considered normal or common. Harry Potter seems to be displaying symptoms of PTSD.
There is enough evidence in the book to show that Harry Potter meets all of the criteria for PTSD as listed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) -V (American Psychiatric Association, 2017).Firstly, he both directly experienced a traumatic event in which he feared for his life and he also witnessed the death of his friend, fulfilling criteria A (Rowling, 2002, American Psychiatric Association, 2017). Secondly, he exhibited the second criteria in cluster B: Harry has distressing dreams about Cedric dying. In the summer, “he kept revisiting the graveyard in his nightmares.” and Dudley has also heard him say “Don’t kill Cedric” in his sleep (Rowling, 2003). Thirdly, Harry shows avoidance for anything that has to do with Cedric, which is the first criteria in cluster C (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). During the summer, Harry thought about having “watched Cedric being murdered and been tied to that tombstone and nearly killed… Don’t think about that, Harry told himself sternly for the hundredth time that summer,” (Rowling, 2003). When he is back at school, he does finally talk about Cedric to his classmates during an outburst, but prior to that, “none of them, apart from Ron and Hermione, had ever heard Harry talk about what happened the night Cedric had died.” and when he talks about him, Harry can “feel himself shaking” (Rowling, 2003).
For critrara D, Harry clearly feels detached from others (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). In the summer, he doesn’t write to tell his friends or godfather when his scar is hurting even though it usually means something bad. When he first sees his friends again, “after yearning to see them for a solid month– he felt he would rather Ron and Hermione left him alone.” At school, he doesn’t tell Ron and Hermione about what he is being forced to do in detention at first, even lying about it to them. One day during lunch he walks out on them for no real reason and spends lunch alone, something he would never have done in previous years. He also distances himself from the headmaster, Dumbledore, who is a father figure to Harry, not telling him when his scar is hurting again at school despite that he did in previous years and his friends telling him he should. Harry has a persistent negative emotional state as well (American Psychiatric Association, 2017), always feeling angry at everyone and guilty for coming out of the tourimort alive when Cedric died.
Harry displays nearly all of the critrara in cluster E (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). During the summer we see him be hypervigilant about Voldemort, saying “everyday this summer had been the same: the tension, the expectation, the temporary relief, and then the mounting tension again.” He has an exaggerated startle response when he hears a pop noise, jumping to his feet and preparing to fight. Harry had previously always avoided getting into fights with his cousin, Dudley, but that summer Harry antagonized Dudley without provocation. Then he gets into a screaming match within minutes of seeing his friends again for the first time since the end of the prior school year; “…before he knew it, Harry was shouting… every bitter and resentful thought that Harry had had in the past month was pouring out of him.” As soon as Harry gets back to Hogwarts he gets into another screaming match with a different friend and continues to quickly get angry at his friends for little to no reason over the year. When classes start, he snaps at the new teacher repeatedly. One could argue it turns into self-destructive behavior when he continues to act out knowing he will get detention where he is forced to harm himself and refuses to tell the headmaster or his head of house what is happening. Harry has problems concentrating in class as well and has restless sleep nearly every night, “he had nothing to look forward to but another restless distrubed night, because even when he escaped nightmares about Cedric he had upsetting dreams…” (Rowling, 2003).
Finally, Harry fits criteria F, G and H (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). Readers see Harry display these symptoms from the summer well into the school year so he definitely has them for more than a month. As stated before, his symptoms are maladaptive and distressing, causing him to do poorer in school, hurting the relationship with his friends, making him very tired, landing him in detention, and causing him to miss practice. His symptoms are not due to any substance or medical condition that readers know of. Therefore, within the text of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry fulfills all of the DSM-V criteria for PTSD.
PTSD is unlike other disorders in the DSM-V since it includes etiology in its diagnosis (Berntsen et al., 2008). The disorder is caused by a traumatic event (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). Harry has much trauma in his life, but it is the events of the night in the graveyard with Voldemort that causes his PTSD in Order of the Phoenix. The two most consistent predictors of developing PTSD are perceiving a threat to one’s life and fear during the traumatic event (Scheeringa et al., 2010). Harry had both of these – he very well knew he could die that night, the same way Cedric did, and he was very afraid – so it is understandable for him to have the disorder.
The psychodynamic model of PTSD was termed by Horowitz and states that PTSD is caused by a person’s inability to successfully integrate a traumatic event into their cognitive schema. According to this model, traumatic events take longer to process since they require huge changes in schemas, so before it can be fully processed the active memory repeats the traumatic event. This overwhelms a person’s coping mechanisms and the inhibitory regulatory system is initiated which causes the traumatic information to be assimilated more gradually. A person reexperiences the event(s) in flashbacks or in Harry’s case, nightmares, because inhibitory control isn’t strong enough and when inhibitory control acts too strongly, avoidance symptoms occur (Jones & Barlow, 1990). This model would work for Harry’s case. When Voldemort returns and kills his friend, his whole schema around how dangerous Voldemort is has to change. Harry has faced Voldemort twice already, in his first and second year, but no one has died. Now, Voldemort murders a friend before his very eyes simply because he was unnecessary to Voldemort. Horowitz also said that social support networks can be a buffer for developing PTSD and without them someone is more likely to develop the disorder (Jones & Barlow, 1990). Right after Harry’s traumatic event, he is sent back to his aunt and uncle’s house for two months where he has no social support at all, which according to Horowitz’s model, could have contributed to Harry developing the disorder.
The best course of treatment for Harry would be Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Psychotherapy is generally best to try before medication. Also, Harry is still a child. Medications shown to treat PTSD symptoms in adults (i.e. SRIs) have not been proven to work in children and the US Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved any medications to treat PTSD in children. There is the most evidence for CBT as treatment for PTSD in children seven and older (Brent et al., 2020). March and associates in 1998 (March et al., 1998) and Smith and associates more recently in 2007 (Smith et al., 2007) have both proven that CBT is effective in children with PTSD. In March’s study, 57% of participants no longer met the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD on completing the treatment and 86% did not by the 6-month follow up (March et al., 1998). In Smith’s study, 24% of participants no longer met criteria for PTSD after just four weeks. 50% more participants in the CBT treatment group compared to a control group had significant improvement in functioning, symptoms of PTSD, depression and anxiety and they retained these gains by the 6-month follow up (Smith et al., 2007). No participants in either study had adverse effects to the CBT proving that it is a safe and effective treatment. (March et al., 1998, Smith et al., 2007). Additionally, Harry might benefit from a medication to help his sleep. Prazosin has been shown to work well in conduction with psychotherapy in children. Since they are better rested, the child can better engage in therapy and have better daytime functioning in general and reduced daytime symptoms of PTSD (Brent et al., 2020). Treatment for his PTSD could greatly improve Harry’s life.
Harry Potter is a fictional character so his diagnosis can never be confirmed. However, it seems as though J.K. Rowling did write him to have the disorder and he serves as a good example of PTSD in adolescent boys. He does not present with diminished interest (criterion C4) which has been shown to not usually occur in boys with PTSD, but he does show feelings of detachment, which has been shown does usually occur in male children with PTSD (Scheeringa et al., 2010). This attention to detail is one of many things that make the Harry Potter series so loved, though this may be something that not all readers notice the first read.
Reference List:
- Berntsen, D., Rubin, D. C., & Bohni, M. K. (2008). Contrasting models of posttraumatic stress disorder: Reply to Monroe and Mineka (2008). Psychological Review, 115(4), 1099-1106. doi:10.1037/a0013730
- Brent, D. et al. (2020). Approach to treating posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents. UpToDate. Retrieved August 10, 2020, from https://www.uptodate.com/contents/approach-to-treating-posttraumatic-stress-disorder-in-children-and-adolescents.
- Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5. (2017). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association.
- Jones, J. C., & Barlow, D. H. (1990). THE ETIOLOGY OF POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER. Clinical Psychology Review, 10, 299-328. Retrieved August 10, 2020, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/027273589090064H
- March, J. S., Amaya-Jackson, L., Murray, M. C., & Schulte, A. (1998). Cognitive‐Behavioral Psychotherapy for Children and Adolescents With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder After a Single‐Incident Stressor. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 37(6), 585-593. doi:10.1097/00004583-199806000-00008
- Rowling, J. K. (2002). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York, NY: Scholastic.
- Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix. New York, NY: Scholastic.
- Rowling, J. K. (1999). Harry potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York, NY: Scholastic.
- Scheeringa, M. S., Zeanah, C. H., & Cohen, J. A. (2010). PTSD in children and adolescents: Toward an empirically based algorithm. Depress Anxiety, 28(9), 770-782.
- Smith, P., Yule, W., Perrin, S., Tranah, T., Dalgleish, T., & Clark, D. M. (2007). Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for PTSD in Children and Adolescents: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 46(8), 1051-1061. doi:10.1097/chi.0b013e318067e288
Life Is Just A Blur 