You'd think a book about magical people could have conjured up better.

This book is a series of essays about how the (first six) Harry Potter books reveal the workings of psychology. Like far too many books about the series, it was clearly an attempt to cash in -- why not wait for volume VII to get all the details right? Still, the idea is good -- use the psychological subtleties of the Potterverse to teach psychology. The result is a series of essays, all about twelve to fifteen pages, based on a variety of viewpoints and psychological conceptions.

Naturally, in a book with more than twenty different essays, the results are a mixed bag -- some are much more readable than others, and some are much more psychological than others. Ironically, the best, to my mind, is among the least psychological -- the first essay ("What Do Students Learn from Hogwarts Classes?") directly attacks the lack of science in the Hogwarts curriculum. I don't mean that they don't study scientific subjects (they study astronomy, though who knows why since they never use it for anything whatsoever, and they study potions, which is basically the lab side of chemistry). But they don't learn science. They don't know how magic works, they don't have any information on how to advance knowledge, they don't know how to conduct a controlled experiment -- they probably (given their ages) don't even know how to do algebra or statistics. It's ridiculous. You can't do research that way. I've been bugged about that for years, and finally someone else saw it. (Of course, what this probably reveals is more about the psychology of J. K. Rowling than about human psychology: She doesn't understand science, so she gives us a scientifically impossible universe. The Potterverse doesn't make economic sense, either, if you look at it. Doesn't make it any less fun, of course.)

I could have done without the psychodynamic psychology at the end, too. That's genuine psychology -- but it's also, flatly, wrong, so why bother? And the section on self-injurious behavior ("'Dobby Had to Iron His Hands, Sir!': Self-Inflicted Cuts, Burns, and Bruises in Harry Potter") makes some very unwarranted assumptions about the rules Dobby operates under -- and, I think, rather misses the point on self-injurious behavior too. (It's a complex subject with both physiological and psychological aspects, and that essay ignores the physiological.)

As for "Harry Potter Therapy" ("Using Psychological Treatment with Harry") -- let's just stick with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, OK?

That particular essay reveals a common problem here: Trying to tie things too closely to the Potterverse. The only way this idea can work is if we take examples from the Potterverse and generalize. Treating the Potterverse as too universal leads to problems.

Those are big caveats, but without exception they are caveats about individual essays. I wish someone would go through this book and mark ones that can truly introduce the uninitiated to various areas of psychology (I should have done that, but I didn't think of it until it came time to write this review, and the book isn't interesting enough to read over again -- at least for me). If that were done, this would be a genuinely interesting introduction to psychology for those who know lots about how people think at Hogwarts and very little about how they think on the other side of Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Does it leave things out? Sure. Very few mental disorders are covered -- even though Gilderoy Lockhart clearly has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and many Slytherins seem to have Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Dementors can actually cause Major Depressive Disorder. (Interesting that Bipolar II disorder -- which is the condition many think J. K. Rowling herself has -- isn't on the list.) So this isn't a substitute for a psychology text. But maybe it can point to one. ( )

The Psychology of Harry Potter provides a wide-ranging look at the Harry Potter universe from the perspectives of a number of subfields within psychology. Contributors represent Counseling Psychology, Educational Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Social Psychology, and other specialties. For this reason its focus is not on analyzing the characters (though there is some of that), but on many aspects of the broader field of psychology that are represented or implied in the Harry Potter books. Examples from the books are associated with major concepts and themes in psychological research, making this a nice introductory survey of topics such as attachment theory, resilience, curiosity, perceptions of time, [b:magical thinking|7815|The Year of Magical Thinking|Joan Didion|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165644384s/7815.jpg|1659905], the nature of evil, group dynamics, racism, and authoritarianism, as well as career development, educational design and pedagogy, and cultural considerations in diagnosis, to name only some of the areas addressed in 22 chapters. (The correct page count is 326, though BenBella's old estimate of 240 may still appear in the online publishing information).

I would have liked a more comprehensive introduction that highlighted the relationships between the chapters. Several chapters use the same references to support contrasting opinions, while others use the same references but diverge in their applications. It's clear from the organization of the text that the editor was aware of this, but a more extensive overview addressing this would be useful for both casual readers and instructors considering adopting this book. I also would have liked a few more clinical chapters, and wish that I'd submitted my work on Butterbeer Abuse after all. Still, this is a very enjoyable collection and well worth the read if you like the meta-Harry Potter genre.

Since the Table of Contents isn't available on Amazon, here are the chapters:

Introduction
Neil Mulholland, Ph.D.

What Do Students Learn from Hogwarts Classes?
Robin S. Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Harry's Curiosity
Susan Engel with Sam Levin

Intergroup Conflict in the World of Harry Potter
Kevin J. Apple and Melissa J. Beers

"Have You Got What it Takes to Train Security Trolls?": Career Counseling for Wizards
Shoshana D. Kerewsky, Psy.D., and Lissa Joy Geiken, M.Ed.

Hogwarts Academy: Common Sense and Magic
Charles W. Kalish and Emma C. Kalish

Attachment Styles at Hogwarts: From Infancy to Adulthood
Wind Goodfriend, Ph.D.

What Harry and Fawkes Have in Common: The Transformative Power of Grief
Misty Hook

Harry Potter and the Resilience to Adversity
Richard E. Heyman and Danielle M. Provenzano

Discovering Magic
Karl S. Rosengren and Emily C. Rosengren

The Magical World of Muggles
Carol Nemeroff

Time and Time Again: Muggle's Watch, the Wizard's Clock
Peter A. Hancock and Michelle K. Gardner

The Social Dynamics of Power and Cooperation in the Wizarding World
Nancy Franklin

Mental Illness in the World of Wizardry
Jessica Leigh Murakami

"Dobby Had to Iron His Hands, Sir!": Self-Inflicted Cuts, Burns, and Bruises in Harry Potter
E. David Klonsky, Ph.D., and Rebecca Laptook, M.A.

The Werewolf in the Wardrobe
Siamak Tundra Naficy

Exploring the Dark Side: Harry Potter and the Psychology of Evil
Christopher J. Patrick and Sarah K. Patrick

Harry Potter and the Word That Shall Not Be Named
Mikhail Lyubansky

Evolution, Development, and the Magic of Harry Potter
David H. Rakison and Caroline Simard

Using Psychological Treatment with Harry
Neil Mulholland, Ph.D.

Defense Against the Real Dark Arts
Patricia A. Rippetoe

Resisting Social Influence: Lessons from Harry Potter
Melanie C. Green

Harry Potter and the Magic of Transformation
Laurie J. Pahel ( )

The Psychology of Harry Potter is an unbiased look at various aspects of the Harry Potter series through a psychological lens. Written by a collection of psychologists, this book makes you think about the underlying themes in the Harry Potter series and what they teach us about ourselves and our culture. Also, the cover-- Harry sitting on the couch-- is humorous. ( )

A book that at first seems to be a little on the frivolous side, but settles into an interesting an non biased analysis of the Potter world as seen through the eyes of a psychologist. great reading for students and browsers ( )