Essay on Psychoanalysis of Holden Caulfield

In J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden Caufield, describes in detail the parts of his life and his environment that bother him the most. He faces these problems with a kind of naivety that prevents him from fully understanding why it is that he is so depressed. His life revolves around his problems, and he seems helpless in evading them. Among others, Holden finds himself facing the issues of acceptance of death, growing up, and his own self-destructiveness.

The death of Holden’s brother Allie at a young age adds to Holden’s negativity as well as stopping Holden from accepting inevitable change. Allie dies immaturely of leukemia. “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it” (p. 39). Holden is in the hospital because he broke his fist, and he was unable to attend Allie’s funeral. Holden has trouble accepting Allie’s death because he never said goodbye to Allie. His relationship with Allie is similar to his maturity. Just as Holden is unable to accept his brother’s death, Holden is not able to accept that

J.D. Salinger 's "The Catcher in the Rye" portrays a troubled teen in New York City. Over the few days the novel depicts, the boy displays his critical and unhealthy mindset. Eventually he has a mental breakdown. Through psychoanalysis of Holden Caulfield, one may suggest that Allie 's death, social development, and an identity crisis are large contributing factors in Holden 's mental breakdown.

A common symptom of depression is lack of concentration which Holden mentions multiple times throughout the novel (NAMI). “The trouble was, I couldn’t concentrate too hot - sometimes it’s hard to concentrate” (169). Another common symptom could be change in movement, referring to pacing, awkward movements, or in Holden’s case, running for no apparent reason. “I don’t even know what I was running for- I guess I just felt like it” (3). A more general view of Holden’s personality reveals that he is extremely pessimistic about life, which is a general checkbox under “depression”. Even though depression may seem likely for young Holden, there may be a more suitable option: PTSD. Symptoms of this mental disorder may include dissociation, which is a disconnection from reality, and avoidance, which could include physically or mentally avoiding the subject (NAMI). An example of dissociation from Holden comes from, once again, feeling like he’s going to disappear into the street, “Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street. I thought I’d just go down, down,down and nobody’d ever see me again” (204). Holden is definitely separated from reality as he is in his own world of illusions and fantasies. An example from avoidance, other than

     Throughout life, an individual may endure emotionally and physically straining moments causing the person to become downhearted, and or irate. These feelings are normal, but may however become a problem when these feelings prohibit someone from living a ‘normal’ life. An estimated 5.2 million American adults ages 18 to 54, or approximately 3.6 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have PTSD (Narrow, Rae, Regier). This purpose of this report is to prove whether or not Holden Caulfield, the main character of J.D. Salingers’s book The Catcher In The Rye, is depressed.

The book, “The Catcher in the Rye” was a book with a very intriguing character named Holden Caulfield. Holden was set to be someone who didn’t like many people nor did he get along well in society. Holden also wasn’t the smartest person nor the was he the most interesting guy but he did go through many things that put him through stress. Many people say that Holden can be described as having angst, anguish, and depression. Holden Caulfield mental problem could be that he have post traumatic stress. Holden shows many signs of having depression and brings back memories of the traumatic things that happened in his life. Holden is a kid who goes through many rough patches in his life that put him in the state of mind that

Holden experiences extreme difficulty accepting his current realities and one of the main factors causing this is the lasting negative impact his brother Allies death had on his life. Firstly, when Holden decides to leave his school, he tells readers , “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (Salinger, 4). Holden’s need for closure is evident in this quote. When Allie died, it was very unexpected and he was not prepared to let him go, resulting in his denial that his brother is actually

Holden knows the reaction his parents are going to give but does not want to be there when it happens. This proves Holden’s disconnection and lack of communication within his family, he is not the son his family intended as that was his younger brother Allie, this makes it clear for Holden to be unable to emotionally connect with his parents. Moreover, during the night of Allie’s death, Holden took affect by the news and reacted by punching all the windows in his garage causing major cuts in his hands, being rushed to the hospital, and psychoanalyzed, he argued, “I was only thirteen, and they had me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage.” (Salinger 38). Holden tells the reader what happened to him during the night of Allie’s death and how he reacted, but also hints how is parents took control of his situation. Instead of trying to connect with their son and communicate with him to handle his problems, Holden’s parents rather had him psychoanalyzed and spend money and rely on other people to fix Holden. Holden does not have a strong connection/relationship with either of his parents than other families do with each

Today in the United States, according the Nation Institute of Mental Health, , almost one in four adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year, and one in seventeen adults are suffering from mental disorders that can be considered serious, such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorders, pervasive developmental disorders, panic disorder, and post traumatic stress disorders (Health Care Service Corporation) (The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders in America). J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, provides the narrative of a young adult, Holden Caulfield, who I believe shows many symptoms of several different mental disorders. In this essay, I will be providing examples straight from The Catcher in the Rye

Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is a teenage boy who has a hard time interacting with people around him, and does not feel like he fits in. Often times he is indecisive and has a condescending mindset generally speaking. The death of his brother, Allie, is childhood trauma that contributes greatly to Holden’s depression, and is seen in glimpses throughout the novel. Holden despises phonies and fears that he might become a phony.

The patient is Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old teenage boy. Caulfield's appearance is tall for his age and surprisingly has quite a few gray hairs at the age of sixteen. Holden comes from an upper-middle class family. His family has enough money to support Holden with many luxuries including skates and expensive suitcases. It appears that Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield aren?t there to talk, care, and be there for Holden, which seems to drive Holden away from his family. However, he has an intimate bond with his younger siblings, who embody innocence and youth. The death of his brother Allie has left a large scar on Holden. He has a cherished and intimate relationship with his young

People that are diagnosed with BPD usually don’t have a strong socially base and usually end up feeling alone or isolated because of this. People with BPD might also feel like they are indifferent from others. “They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, . . . Such symptoms are most acute when people with borderline personality disorder feel isolated and lacking in social support (http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com/ 1).” This connect with Holden since he often feels like he is different from his peers and often isolates himself from them. In Chapter 7, after he

Psychoanalysis is a psychoanalytical theory and therapy that aims to treat mental disorders by investigating the conscious and unconscious elements in a human mind by bringing fears to the conscious mind. According to Sigmund Freud, “The unconscious silently directs the thoughts and behavior of the individual” (Freud 95). Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is sixteen years old and does not act his own age for he is stuck in his own private world, filled with pain and suffering. In the novel, Holden can be observed through a psychoanalytical view, which provides the reader a clear understanding of his unconscious mind. Holden is displayed as a troubled and foolish teenager who is flunking

When the reader looks back at Holden’s history they can make assumptions as to why Holden wants things to stay the way they are. The general assumption would be because Holden is very distant to people who are dear to him. He mentions his younger sister, Phoebe frequently but cannot connect with her in any way due to Holden’s enrollment in a relatively distant school. Holden also recalls his two brothers, Allie and D.B., whom he is exiled from in result of Allie’s tragic fate and D.B.’s migration to California. The death of Holden’s favorite person, Allie, results ultimately in the unstable mental condition that controls Holden. Holden’s fascination with children and their mentalities is driven from Holden’s mourning of Allie’s death. While Holden tries to resist changing, he is identifying himself with Allie. Critic, Hermit Vanderbilt, agrees that, “Obviously despairing at the cosmic injustice of such an early death, Holden falls into a schizophrenic disorder interested in keeping him from growing up and keeping the role of Allie alive.” (Vanderbilt 299). In addition to the laments of personal loss, Holden also desires a stagnancy of time because of his fear of losing his moral purity. This is shown when Holden speaks about how his older brother, D.B., has lost his moral standards in the pursuit of fame. Holden feels D.B. has strayed far from his truly respectable writing when D.B. “sold himself out” to the expectations of Hollywood. Holden refers to D.B. as a

When the mind protects itself from outside pain it uses multiple defense mechanisms according to Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytical Theory.In J.D.Salinger’s novel, The Catcher and the Rye, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, is shielding himself from all outside experiences that cause pain to his inner psyche. Holden has many repressed memories, and as a result, he shields himself using the mechanics which are in the Psychodynamic Theory also written by Sigmund Freud.When the book begins Holden does not introduce himself like most typical Novels about people's life, instead, he knows what the reader wants. According to him the reader “...will probably want to know