Mental Health Notes

Harry Potter: A Cure for Depression?

by Alicia Sparks, Mental Health Notes on July 10th, 2007

Here’s a new one for you: Reading the books of the Harry Potter series could help minor/low-grade depression.

I can’t take credit for that idea (and at present don’t know if I’d want to) - it’s from a 2003 article, Mental Health Benefits of Harry Potter, written by Jeff Stoyanoff and featured at MuggleNet.

(For those of you who aren’t die hard Harry Potter fans such as myself, MuggleNet is one of the most popular HP-related websites out there.)

The article isn’t poorly written, but it merely skims the topic the title leads us to believe will be discussed.

Given tonight’s debut of the movie adaptation of the fifth HP book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I couldn’t resist addressing this idea myself.

The main idea of the article in question is - and this is my own quote - “When you’re feeling down, reading Harry Potter books will lift your spirits.”

Being a ridiculous (or, riddikulus? Alright, here’s a link for you Muggles) Harry Potter fan myself, I agree. When I’m feeling a little blue and don’t have much drive to do anything, reading a Harry Potter book usually perks me up a notch or three. I’m sure it has something everything to do with J.K. Rowling’s awe-spiring storytelling skills, the story’s own ability to lure you out of your world and into Hogwarts, and my personal investment in the series.

But, let’s look at this a bit closer. Stoyanoff obviously doesn’t have very deep of a well from which to draw mental health-related knowledge, so he refers to “minor/low-grade depression” when I think he actually means, “Those days when you feel like crap and everything goes wrong.”

Since we’ve already established that reading Harry Potter (or any other book/series you enjoy) can help bring you out of a funk, are there any other mental health benefits to reading Harry Potter books?

Well, there are certainly a few mental health price tags to pay. You may be snickering upon reading that, but I know I wasn’t alone when, for weeks, I grieved the death of a certain character in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I know I’m not the only one who’s still in denial over the death of another character, two years ago, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Actually, I could still be suffering from post-traumatic stress over that one.

And I know I won’t be the only reader who feels a whirlwind of mixed emotions, abandonment being the most prevalent, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book, is released in 10 days.

There are “helplines” being set up across the world for readers, just like me, in preparation of the final turning of the pages.

Although I’m as obsessed as the next fan (definitely more so than others, perhaps less so than few), I can take a step back and view the hold this literary phenomenon has on us from clear eyes.

Throughout six lengthy books, we’ve watched Harry Potter leave a shabby “home life” and enter a world of wonder where he makes friends and feels more at home than anywhere else. We’ve watched him save lives; we’ve watched him witness lives coming to an end. We’ve seen him grieve his parents, and we watched on as he had his first nervous breakdown. We’ve seen his first crush, his first dance, his first kiss, and his first heartbreak.

All the while, we watched his loved ones, friends, and even enemies play their roles in his successes and failures.

It’s not Harry Potter that causes us to cheer up or feel down and out - it’s the story of Harry Potter. It’s everything Harry Potter represents: Friends, enemies, life, death, new beginnings, final endings, good…and evil. And we do more than watch these events; we become invested in the story. We find story lines and characters to which we relate. When something good happens to our “friends,” we’re happy and want it to continue. When something bad happens, we’re sad, or angry, and we want to know why.

Harry Potter is Every Story.

So, back to the question: Are there any mental health benefits to reading Harry Potter? I think so. The books have been known to cheer up more than a few Muggles, after all.

And depression? Well, maybe not clinical depression, but sure. They’ve been known to darken a few days, too.

Stoyanoff summed it up best at the end of his article: “Undoubtedly the Harry Potter series is magical in a literary sense, yet it also holds great power in its affect upon all of us.”

Yes, it certainly does.

Image: Newscom

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