Shakespeare and a Therapist

The Rundown

I needed to post about literary criticism, and I thought who better to speak on the matter than my favorite psychologist Doctor Reynolds. I found out that he is not only a psychologist now, but a fairly successful novelist. He is using his psychological background to narrate the inner workings of an arsonist, and letting the world know about the many fires in Southern California. I gave the good doctor an email with these questions, hoping he would answer each one individually on his own time:

Since your favorite character is Hamlet, would you perform a fictional psychological evaluation on what you know about his character?

Could you do the same for Romeo?

Could you also think of possible sources each of the negative characteristics of the characters comes from (for example: abuse, neglect, boredom)?

Do you think that performing a play that has two teenagers commit suicide would benefit the community by presenting a "what not to do" scenario, or do you think it would just give teenagers bad ideas?

If Romeo and Juliet came to your office, what would you attempt to address first? 

Have you had any personal experiences with Shakespeare worth mentioning?

The Answer

Hi Johnnie---

     These are all great questions.  Perhaps we can begin a dialogue about them?  It has been a while since I have been dealing with Hamlet and Romeo in terms of their psychological makeup.  However, it occurs to me that what I found so interesting about Shakespeare was his ability to see deeply into human nature and recognize the conflicts that we all struggle with.  Psychoanalysis divides people/patients into those with conflicts (between id/primitive impulses, ego/mastery, and superego/conscience) and those people with psychological deficits that make it very difficult if not impossible to resolve/solve their conflicts.  Probably we are all some of both.  As far as I can see Shakespeare wrote to understand/portray human conflicts at a very deep level.  I believe this is why he has survived for so many years.  Given this perspective, what conflicts to you see Hamlet and Romeo struggling with?   More later as we tackle the other great questions. 

                                                                        Take Care, Dr. Reynolds 

What This Means

It seems that rather than the doctor and I taking a single swoop through the questions of the id, super-ego, ego, and dream fulfillment within Shakespeare's plays, we are going to have a chronicled conversation that might last a while.