A Brief Interruption

Articles

A Brief Interruption

By Meri Ulrich
July 21, 2007

I wanted to focus on my series of articles regarding Alzheimer's disease but something came up that necessitated that I break from my subject for a moment.

The latest (and final) book in The Harry Potter series became available at midnight on 7/21 throughout the world. Having been in the book business for part of my working life I am familiar with what happens when a book of this money making potential hits the stands. Aside from the long lines and hysterical buyers waiting to get their hands on a copy...there is chaos and long nights for booksellers everywhere. I suppose the rational is that a lot of money is to be made so they do it willingly.

Now to the heart of my article....

In this world, with it's daily tragedy and ever-present danger lurking and threatening to upset everything that we hold dear....you would think that most young people are aware of what is going on, at least to a certain extent. Even the youngest among us must be cognizant of terrorism, missing persons, natural disasters and a myriad of other scary and mind blowing events.

I can understand without question why counseling is required and necessary when someone's fellow student shoots up a school or harms another person. I can understand the need for vigilance toward the fragile young mind when something happens that is life altering and can truly upset and endanger the psyche of a child who hasn't reached maturity as of yet and isn't capable of processing it.

When the devastating hurricanes hit the South children saw their parents killed, their pets lost, their cities destroyed and their lives altered forever. When 9/11 occurred I know that I, as an adult could barely comprehend the evil of what I had witnessed and I know that for a young child the whole thing must have been mind altering and terrifying.

That brings me to the release of the Latest Harry Potter novel and the news that special counseling lines have been set up for the young readers of these novels. Some of the major characters have been killed off in this final book and according to the news, young children may not be able to cope with that. They will need to be counseled and eased through the trauma of losing these familiar characters according to the pundits on the various news programs. Obviously the loss of a FICTIONAL character is more traumatic then the loss of a fellow student, a pregnant mother, a plane crash victim, a flood victim or the daily carnage that is taking place all over the world and especially in the Middle East.

I realize that kids have their favorite pets and toys and that when one of them is lost or destroyed there is some pain and some sadness that children must deal with. I lost more than one pet to illness and other factors that are inevitable when one owns a pet. I also lost toys that meant the world to me and I cried for them...for a while.

I also recovered in time, as most children do and I moved on. I was not super-human or especially mature when those events occurred in my life but I was very young as are the children that are now being provided with special counseling due to the loss of Harry Potter characters.

Have our children become so disaffected by the loss of REAL life that they surely must be aware of to some degree or another, that they relate to FICTIONAL characters in a stronger and more powerful way? Is it necessary to protect them from a sad ending in a book or a film that they KNOW is FICTIONAL and NOT real?

I have attempted to research this phenomenon but can't make any sense out of it. I can't understand why we are raising a bunch of kids who are so maladjusted that they can overlook the daily dose of horror in the world in which they live and require mental health help when a FICTIONAL character dies.

If they continue to live in such a world of make-believe and they can't deal with FICTION...how will they cope with reality when they get older? Could this transference of emotion from what is real to what is unreal be a method of avoiding reality?

I don't have the answers, but I am concerned about the minds of our children when it is apparent that they obviously care more about a dead MAKE BELIEVE character in a novel than a real live human one.

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About the author: Meri has a Medical/Legal background and is a former forensic researcher specializing in psychological profiling.

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