POA: The dementors and Harry’s grief.
Caveat: It is not possible to fully diagnose fictional characters.
In PoA, we are first introduced to the Dementors, who symbolize depression. In this meta I am going to argue that Harry’s journey of overcoming the dementors in PoA, serve as a means to process and explore his grief for his parents.
1.0 Suppressed traumatic grief
Harry first interacts with the dementors in chapter 5 of the book (aptly titled ‘The Dementor’) and Harry reacts very viscerally to their presence:
‘Harry’s eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn’t see. He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder’ PoA
He also begins to hear screams:
‘And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams. He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move his arms, but couldn’t’
The reader (and Harry) later learn that these screams are his mothers. But at this moment he can’t identify the voice and it feels ‘far away’.
This perceived distance can be seen as a symbol for how deeply Harry has suppressed both the trauma and the grief of his parent’s death. Indeed in traumatic grief (defined for this purpose as bereavement associated with a traumatic event), avoidance can often occur (Baker et al. 2016).
This includes the suppression of feelings and thoughts surrounding the loss. Additionally at this point of his life, Harry has never had a space to explore his grief in a healthy way.
There is also a powerlessness in Harry ‘wanting to help’ but not being able to and Powerlessness is often a feeling which accompanies traumatic experiences in life.
In Chapter 9 (Grim Defeat) Harry falls from his broom because of the dementors.
‘ Harry felt sick and humiliated every time he thought of them. Everyone said the dementors were horrible, but no one else collapsed every time they went near one. ‘
This is the second time that Harry has experienced physical symptoms because of the dementors. And in his seminal book ‘The body keeps the score’ Bessel van der Kolk notes:
‘We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.’
This book lays the foundation for the idea that trauma can often manifest as physical symptoms and in Harry’s case this includes becoming so overwhelmed by the suppressed trauma that he faints. And the unlocking of this memory Harry begins to experience flashbacks (another symptom of trauma.
‘ He had heard her words, heard them over and over again during the night hours in the hospital wing while he lay awake, staring at the strips of moonlight on the ceiling……..he heard the last moments of his mother’s life, her attempts to protect him, Harry, from Lord Voldemort, and Voldemort’s laughter before he murdered her. ‘
Therefore it can be argued that Harry is suffering from traumatic grief.
2.0 The Dementor’s lessons as a form of therapy
During his lessons with Lupin, Harry begins to grapple with the effect of the dementors. And within this safe environment (with a trusted adult) he begins to process his trauma.
At first Harry grapples with the intrusive thought that he wants to hear his mother’s voice. A yearning that comes from having not known her. Despite the memory being traumatic and that trauma causing him to collapse, Harry clings to it:
‘Any second now, he might hear his mother again . . . but he shouldn’t think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn’t want to ... or did he’
In the next round of Harry v Boggart Dementor he hears his father for the first time and
‘Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes’
This is the first time since encountering the dementors that Harry has had any form of emotional release. And in the next round:
‘ The screaming inside Harry’s head had started again — except this time, it sounded as though it were coming from a badly tuned radio — softer and louder and softer again.’
Having experienced some emotional release, Harry is able to stand his ground against the physical symptoms, although they (like the softer screams) are not completely absent:
‘Harry’s legs felt like water, he was still on his feet — though for how much longer, he wasn’t sure’
Grief is a messy, complex thing which never has a neat solution. Indeed, we all react differently to it. But through learning to fight the dementors Harry begins processing his repressed grief.
Baker AW, Keshaviah A, Horenstein A, et al. The role of avoidance in complicated grief: A detailed examination of the Grief-Related Avoidance Questionnaire (GRAQ) in a large sample of individuals with complicated grief. J Loss Trauma. 2016;21(6):533-547. doi:10.1080/15325024.2016.1157412
Bessel A. van der Kolk (1994) The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Evolving Psychobiology of Posttraumatic Stress, Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 1:5, 253-265, DOI: 10.3109/10673229409017088
Liotti, Giovanni. "Overcoming powerlessness in the clinical exchange with traumatized patients." Psychoanalytic Inquiry 34.4 (2014): 322-336.
