Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

This is the place for discussion and voting on various aspects of werewolf life, social ideas, physical appearance, etc. Also a place to vote on how a werewolf should look.
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HangingRabbit
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Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

Post by HangingRabbit »

One thing that's always puzzled me is the mental workings of a werewolf. Mostly concerning mental illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or even plain insanity. To have an amazingly fantastic creature with all the perks of lycathropy be cursed with the confusion of a mental disporder must be hard to cope with, ontop of all the "Should I reveal my secret?/How can I exist?/What am I?" questions that werewovles must think. To anyone whose play Werewolf: The Apocalyspe, you would have at least an idea of how mental disorders effect a werewolf and their funcitioning. I suppose the whole thing would be like putting another plug into an already crammed socket. Too many things to worry about and deal with can cause a explosion of emotion and pure rage. Anyways, just a thought.
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Re: Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

Post by Stargirl »

Seeing as I'm majoring in psychology, I feel slightly obligated to reply to this thread. That, and I LOVE psych in general. Excuse me while I babble for a bit:

I imagine that all werewolves would experience a certain amount of stress upon being bitten or first Turning. In a normal human, stress can actually take years off of one's life. Apply that to a werewolf, and I think it would be more of a mental wearing down than a physical one. If the stress becomes too much to handle, the werewolf might descend into depression or start lashing out at those around him/her.
Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and dissociative identity disorder are real mental disorders off which lycanthropy reflects in a very literary sense (in my opinion). Bipolar disorder involves sudden mood swings, which a werewolf might experience as they grow accustomed to their new, more animalistic side. Schizophrenics experience delusions and hallucinations, which could be interpreted as a newly Turned werewolf suddenly seeing, smelling, hearing, and doing things they once thought not physically possible. I find DID the most intriguing, personally, because a werewolf is two different beings in one: a human and a wolf. If a werewolf has only two forms (human and feral wolf), then those can be seen as two distinct personalities, one based in instinct (or passionate emotion, if I wanted to go further) and the other in ration/logic. If they had a third form (their ONLY form in the case of my werewolves), the hybrid, then it can be used as a physical manifestation of the anguish a werewolf feels as they live torn between two entities.
Quite possibly the scariest werewolf I can think of would be one with antisocial personality disorder. Take a person with no remorse or empathy and give them supernatural abilities that make them extremely deadly and you've got a HUGE problem on your hands.

I wrote a one shot involving a werewolf with minor OCD, and I'm tempted to keep going with that now...
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Re: Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

Post by Uniform Two Six »

HangingRabbit wrote: To anyone whose play Werewolf: The Apocalyspe, you would have at least an idea of how mental disorders effect a werewolf and their funcitioning.
Eh. W:tA was sort of it's own beast when it came to a re-interpretation of the werewolf, so be careful not to go overboard when it comes to drawing parallels with mental disorders and werewolves (at least W:tA werewolves). White Wolf had two whole tribes that were written up as being just naturally prone to bizarre psychological disorders, and that doesn't even touch on some of the "spiritual energies" that could cause full-blown insanity if a (W:tA) werewolf were exposed to them. Don't get me wrong. White Wolf really did re-invent the wheel with Werewolf: the Apocalypse (and I personally liked their take on lycanthropy), but keep in mind that with regards to the classic werewolf archtypes, they were always sort off in their own little world.
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Re: Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

Post by Scott Gardener »

Psychiatric lycanthropology is an ENORMOUS field. (even if purely hypothetical) There are all kinds of different things that can go wrong in the head when dealing with the sudden disruption of one's entire world-view. Not to mention the chaos and confusion that would have to go through the brain of someone who already is having to deal with hardware problems making understanding reality problematic.

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Re: Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

Post by LunarCarnivore »

I think it comes down to the individual. It would be a tremendous amount of trauma and stress, and i think insanity/psychological problems would be fairly prevalent among werewolves. In the few short stories I've wrote, this (and a few other factors like hunger and poverty) is what led many werewolves in the middle ages to become killers of men, leading to the monstrous legends of today. When you take a man (or woman), a hungry, poor person whose life is a struggle, and then add the trauma of being bitten, the religious guilt of being a "monster" and the instincts of a predator... I think it's safe to say werewolves of the past were very much the dangerous monsters depicted in horror movies and legends. Not because they were werewolves, but because of the times/mental problems. Just my way of explaining why werewolves are considered monsters... it all boils down to the psychology of the man (or woman).
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Re: Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

Post by Trinity »

Wolf-man-24 wrote:I think it comes down to the individual. It would be a tremendous amount of trauma and stress, and i think insanity/psychological problems would be fairly prevalent among werewolves. In the few short stories I've wrote, this (and a few other factors like hunger and poverty) is what led many werewolves in the middle ages to become killers of men, leading to the monstrous legends of today. When you take a man (or woman), a hungry, poor person whose life is a struggle, and then add the trauma of being bitten, the religious guilt of being a "monster" and the instincts of a predator... I think it's safe to say werewolves of the past were very much the dangerous monsters depicted in horror movies and legends. Not because they were werewolves, but because of the times/mental problems. Just my way of explaining why werewolves are considered monsters... it all boils down to the psychology of the man (or woman).
"With power comes great responsibility."
because -
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Many humans need to be taught wisdom. Most never get this lesson, especially with money, power, etc. If you look at what happens to people (especially poor) who are given something that gives them power, many will abuse it, get greedy of it, and defend it for themselves. They don't understand it, or the repercussions of poor choices that involve it.

Add to that, the emotional trauma of being rejected by society. This is a recent issue I'm dealing with, with my step-daughter. She is so wrapped up in what other people think about her, what other people are doing, or what other people have that it's driving me NUTTY. I cannot even begin to imagine how she'd react to being bitten by a werewolf! Add the power and the instinct surge to the realization that NOW she will /never/ "fit in"... *shivers*

Any kind of trauma can change a person in ways we don't expect. Add any other mental, emotional, or social instability into the mix and it becomes volatile!
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Re: Werewolf Mental Health/Psychology?

Post by outwarddoodles »

I just HAVE to post this essay from a friend of mine on DeviantArt. We have had some pretty good conversations about werewolves and psychology, in a literal "what-if" scenario and also in very metaphorical scenario.

However, here is one of my posts on the subject of werewolves and mental health (cross-posting to here.):


I definitely perceive my “darker” interpretation of werewolves having a lot to do with my cynical, biologically deterministic beliefs. I think that humans are riddled with instincts that are so natural to us, we don’t even know they’re instincts – they’re in the back of our minds influencing what we perceive as thoughts we’ve entirely crafted by our own free will. (Silly us!) ; ) I love exploring these instincts through the template of a werewolf, where the instincts are changed just enough that they’re not so easily looked over.

In terms of mental illness, mental illness is a topic that’s really close to my heart due to personal experiences. For years I’ve struggled with mild depression and anxiety. It wasn’t until I started college where I felt like it gained a mind of its own. I began seeing a psychiatrist who just recently said “f*** it” to antidepressants and gave me a mood stabilizer….I haven’t felt completely “whole” yet, but these past few weeks I’ve been feeling a hell of a lot better!

I often feel like there’s a second half to me that I’m waging constant war with. I have to fight that “base emotional” side of me in order to act rationally and socially appropriate. It’s a bit of a win and a loss when it comes to how well I can hide it: It’s a win because I know I don’t treat people with the same tempestuous emotions that I feel. It’s a loss because I’m constantly hiding a “beastial” side – that half that hurts and isn’t socially appropriate.
Anxiety is perhaps the most basic experience of all – the desire to live and the physical fear over bodily harm. I imagine werewolves being more connected to the sensation of every fiber of your being becoming prepared to protect your survival. I can only imagine that a first shift would be a lot like an anxiety attack – feeling hot and cold at the same time, the prickly sensations, heart racing, worried like hell, ready to f*** something up, etc etc.

If mental illness and personality disorders are dysfunctions of otherwise normal, survival enhancing processes, then werewolves would be the mental/personality disorder prime candidate : there’s a lot of factors fighting for control in a brain that likely shifts as much as the body. If some people can’t keep their single human mind in balanced, how can you expect a monster of two minds to do the same thing?

Not that I think werewolves should be loaded with disorders or to lose sight of their human values. A lot of people struggle this way but cope and adapt. I believe that humans are designed to adapt because that's how we've survived. I think that every werewolf would experience a personal journy and struggle to understand their selves and remain sane, regardless of how naturally stable their personality was before.
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