Dialogue: Putting the great characters of literature on the couch

So now it's official. Last week the Canadian Medical Association confirmed what we've all known for so long: Winnie the Pooh is stark raving bonkers.

Apparently Pooh and his friends suffer from a variety of psychological illnesses, from obsessive-compulsive disorder and honey addiction (Pooh), to gender identity disorder (Christopher Robin), chronic hyperactivity (Tigger), generalised anxiety disorder (Piglet), dyslexia (Owl), narcissistic personality disorder (Rabbit) and depression (Eeyore).

But the ratepayers of the Hundred Acre Wood are not beyond help. According to the doctors, all that Pooh and his friends need are therapy and prescription drugs.

The Canadian Medical Association is, of course, poking a bit of Christmas fun at psychologists, but in the process it has made a startling discovery: the world of fiction is thick with characters who could be rescued from lives of quiet despair by a quick visit to the psychiatrist.

Glance at any fairytale and you will soon agree. The stories we tell our children are rife with mental illness. You can have only so many evil stepsisters, wicked witches and emperors who enjoy clothing-optional lifestyles before you have to question the adequacy of psychological support services in fairytale land.

Just look at the Seven Dwarfs. In the dwarf household, mental illness is so prominent that each dwarf is named after the disorder that afflicts him. There is Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy and Happy. The only exception seems to be Doc, who is so called no doubt because he's dispensing the Prozac.

But grown-up fiction is not much better.

The 19th century had its fair share of lunatics, and the Bronte sisters made a tidy living by writing about them.

If ever there were a case for the wholesale application of psychiatric treatment to fictional characters, the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights would be Exhibit A.

With just a few courses of electric shock therapy, Heathcliff could have been spared those fruitless years of torment wandering the moors in search of his lost Cathy. Instead, he might have devoted his time to a more meaningful pursuit, such as golf (whereby he could have more usefully spent those years of torment wandering the moors in search of his lost ball).

But when it comes to literary lunatics, no one comes close to Shakespeare.

King Lear suffers from spontaneous-nudity syndrome, and although the rest of his family wear more clothes, they are no less mad. Then there is Macbeth, who is only slightly mad until he starts listening to his wife (there is a lesson in there for husbands) and Othello, who isn't mad at all until he starts to listen to everyone but his wife (and another lesson for wives).

And, finally, there is Hamlet, who hides his madness by pretending to be mad, until it becomes obvious that he is actually more mad than he is pretending to be.

William S. packed his tragedies so full of psychopaths that by the time the curtain came down almost everybody had been murdered. The few left standing had nothing much to do but search in vain for grief counselling.

Obviously this is where our Canadian friends can help. Just picture the Canadian Medical Association's version of Romeo and Juliet.

Scene: a balcony in Verona

Enter Juliet, stage right, clutching her ample bosom.

Juliet: Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Enter second psychologist, stage left, clutching his clipboard.

Second psychologist: Why this endless search for Romeo? Tell me about your childhood. What do you see when I show you this ink blot?

If only all of Shakespeare's royal courts had been manned by the good doctors of Canada with their pills and their therapies, their Valium and their anger-management courses, there would have been no evil plots, no blood on the floor and nothing rotten in the state of Denmark. But there would have also been no humanity. And therein lies the rub.

Psychiatrists and psychologists devote their lives to eliminating the character flaws that make people different from everyone else. As they sedate and lobotomise, they strangle the velvet-slippered demons that quietly stalk us all.

But playwrights and storytellers weave a different web. They teach us that our flaws are precisely what make us all so very human in the first place.

The lunatics in our midst should not pad softly across the worn linoleum. They should clomp through the attic during that delicate pause when the after-dinner mints are served. They should stomp magnificently across the royal courts of the mind.

The Canadian Medical Association has no business scouring the pages of literature, pointing out the flaws of fictional characters. It should stick with the real world, where the flaws are harder to find but easier to treat.

And it should leave Pooh and his friends alone. If nothing else, Eeyore will be much happier that way.

* Willy Trolove is an Auckland writer.