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!)