FREE counter and Web statistics from sitetracker.com
collision detection
content | discontent
send me yours
December 20, 2004
Gollum on the couch








In The Lord of the Rings, Gollum is clearly nuts. But just how crazy is he? In a paper posted to the medical-journal website BMJ, a bunch of medical students try to diagnose Gollum's precise mental-health difficulties. As they write:

There is no disorder of the form of thought. He uses neologisms such as "triksy" and "hobbitses." Gollum has nihilistic thoughts, believing that he is a murderer, liar, and thief; although there is some basis in fact for this and he shows little guilt or remorse. He is preoccupied with, and deeply desires, the ring. He has obsessive thoughts but no compulsions, though he would do anything for the ring. He is hostile towards Frodo, the current owner of the ring. He has paranoid ideation about Sauron ("the eye is always watching") and about Samwise Gamgee ("the fat hobbit... he knows"). Gollum has difficulty controlling his thoughts and actions, exacerbated by prolonged contact with the ring. As Gandalf and Frodo have similar symptoms in the presence of the ring, we can attribute this somatic passivity to the ring. There are features of dissociation. Sméagol has separated his personality and is now Gollum as well.

He shows no evidence of any cognitive impairment. He has poor insight into his condition but he is aware of the Gollum-Sméagol dissociation.

They rule out a "space occupying lesion such as a brain tumour", since Gollum's symptons have been longstanding. He also doesn't quite fit the ICD-10 criteria schizophrenia. Ultimately, the students figure he suffers from anameia, hyperthyrodism, starvation-caused paranoid psychosis, and schizoid personality disorder.


(Thanks to Boing Boing for this one!)

Posted by Clive Thompson at December 20, 2004 03:17 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt3/mt-tb.cgi/1071

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Gollum on the couch:

» texas hold em from texas hold em
You may find it interesting to check the pages in the field of party poker online poker texas hold em [Read More]

Tracked on March 18, 2005 1:48 AM

Comments

So in other wards the ring is his "crack"

Posted by: Ian at December 20, 2004 4:32 PM

This sentence bothers me: "He has paranoid ideation about Sauron ("the eye is always watching") "

I mean, as the saying goes, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. The eye of Sauron IS watching (or at least searching). Gollum's fear does not seem to be paranoid or unfounded, instead it seems to be quite real.

Posted by: Will at December 21, 2004 11:29 AM

Good point. One of the problems with applying diagnosis of "real"-world mental-healthy problems to a world that includes magic is that, in a magically-based world, many things that would ordinarily seem delusions are realistic.

On a similar note, a few personality/psychology tests that emerged back a few decades ago -- during the original fad for such tests -- had to be adjusted, because they kept on diagnosing Christians as insane.

Posted by: Clive at December 21, 2004 6:57 PM

Those tests were accurate. And before you attack me...I'm not saying Christians are insane (well, at least not ALL of them). But based on the way that the tests operationalized "insanity" (e.g. belief in the presence of non-corporeal beings who watch you and with whom you intereact, etc...)well....it diagnosed accurately.

Now, has anyone noticed how much the character of Dobby in Rowling's "Harry Potter" books was drawn from Gollum?

Posted by: Lori at December 22, 2004 7:52 PM

haha wow thats great stuff

Gollum does have hallucinations though, doesn't he? He sees that other him in the movie yes?

I noticed they didn't talk about hallucinations.

Posted by: woot at December 23, 2004 11:32 AM

Having a Masters in psychology and having a real fondness for "The Lord of the Rings," I've thought a lot about this very thing. Even when I last read "The Hobbit" I found him to be a very interesting character... one worthy of case study. If you look at Gollum from the Gestalt perspective (which theorizes that each person has many parts within them, good and bad, and that there are conflicts between those parts), he makes a little bit more sense. He's lived alone in the swamps for hundreds of years, so naturally, he develops outward relationships amongst the different aspects of his personality. Also, he happens to have extreme conflicts (probably because of the severity of his isolation)... he's constantly struggling with whether to kill the hobbitses, or help them.

Cool post! Thanks for sharing it.

Posted by: Julie at December 23, 2004 3:18 PM

Funny, thats exactly what I was diagnosed with.

Posted by: Joel at January 6, 2005 5:55 PM

Posted by: online poker at January 27, 2005 6:29 AM

The largest variety of FDA approved. Order Wellbutrin now and get free over night http://www.wellbutrin-web.com delivery or 30 days supplies of vitamins. The largest buy without Ortho-McNeil Pfizer Merck Bayer AstraZeneca

Posted by: Wellbutrin at January 27, 2005 10:58 AM

The largest variety of FDA approved. Carisoprodol RxList Order now and get free over night http://www.fast-carisoprodol.com delivery or 30 days supplies of vitamins. The largest buy without Ortho-McNeil Pfizer Merck Bayer AstraZeneca

Posted by: Carisoprodol RxList at January 27, 2005 2:11 PM

The largest variety of FDA approved. Order get Soma now and get free over night http://www.somasafari.com delivery or 30 days supplies of vitamins. The largest buy without Ortho-McNeil Pfizer Merck Bayer AstraZeneca

Posted by: get Soma at January 27, 2005 3:58 PM

144 want to play online poker mate?

Posted by: online poker at January 29, 2005 3:24 AM

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

NOTE: If you posted a comment and you can't see it -- try refreshing your browser.


Remember me?