Reviews

The Psychology of Harry Potter: An Unauthorized Examination of the Boy Who Lived by Neil Mulholland

elon's review

4.0

I always find scientific takes on fictional worlds interesting, and Harry Potter and Psychology both lies close to my heart, so this was something I just had to read. It's interesting, but at times also boring and seemingly irrellevant, drawing illogical paralells between psychological phenomenoms and spells in the Potter universe. More focus on the Harry Potter world and less on psychoanalasys and cognitive phenomenoms, or at least with clearer connections to each other, would have been preferable.

amyinthewind's review

5.0

An excellent collection of essays on various psychology concepts using ideas and characters from Harry Potter as examples!

x_elmo13's review

5.0

i got this book as a joke but it was honestly super interesting. i throughly enjoyed most of the essays!! a few boring ones here and there but overall they were great

_belle's review

reflective medium-paced

4.0

Really very interesting for any HP fan who also has an interest in psychology. This book has a vast amount of essays written by different people, all exploring various points and scenarios regarding the first six HP books and the wizarding world in general. Some of the points and discussions are really quite fascinating.

There are some factual errors littered throughout:

-Astrology is not a subject at Hogwarts, it is Astronomy
-Mad Eye Moody is never actually a professor
-Cho and Harry are not classmates
-Charlie and hippogriff misspellings (hippograff)
-The use of the polyjuice potion to find out the heir of Slytherin is in the second book, The Chamber of Secrets.. not The Order of the Phoenix

...just to name a few

Overall a very interesting read. 

danileah07's review

informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

bookonthebrightside30's review

4.0

In interesting view on the reasons behind the love of this series from a psychology standpoint. Fans of the series will enjoy revisiting their favorite scenes and characters from this POV.

hlford22's review

funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.75

fandom4ever's review

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

The first six essays in this book were excellent; they really delved into topics in the Harry Potter universe that had always been questions for me. For example, they make you take a closer look at the fact that wizards coming from wizarding families are far less likely to question where magic comes from and to experiment with what it can do than those who come from Muggle homes, who seem to create new spells, potions, and the like far more often. There was also an essay on how sorting into Houses really sets the students against each other right from the start and there really is no opportunity for them to branch out and make friends from other Houses. They then give examples on how Hogwarts can change this. After reading those first essays, I was excited to see what the rest of the book had to offer, but it fell flat. The last parts of the book just weren’t any good. Rather than examining things from the Harry Potter series through a psychological lens, it was more like the authors wanted to discuss a particular psychological topic and tried to throw in a paragraph about Harry Potter to make it fit in this book. Overall, it’s not something you need to rush out and read but if you can borrow it, the ones listed below are where it’s at.

BEST
1. What Do Students Learn from Hogwarts Classes?
2. Harry’s Curiosity
3. Intergroup Conflict in the World of Harry Potter
4. “Have You Got What It Takes to Train Security Trolls?”
5. Hogwarts Academy
6. Attachment Styles at Hogwarts

OKAY
18. Evolution, Development, and the Magic of Harry Potter
19. Using Psychological Treatment with Harry
21. Resisting Social Influence
22. Harry Potter and the Magic of Transformation 

mcerrin's review

3.0

Ehh I really wanted this to not be so boring. I understand each of these Psychology Of books are unauthorized by different experts and edited by different people but this one fell short on the interest level. Maybe because this is my field, I just felt like I was reading an old textbook nothing new or interested I couldn't already deduce myself. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Dexter topics of this book are much more interesting and fun to read.

northernfleabag's review

3.0

I found this more of an 'entertaining' read than serious one, and like most books I found essays that I enjoyed (as a Harry Potter fan, my A Level psychology only went so far - although the psychology isn't too deep that non-psychology savvy readers can still follow) and some that I didn't.