The Psychiatric Couch: Winnie the Pooh

Pooh Bear, Tigger,
Piglet and Eeyore

I'm not a licensed psychiatrist, a practicing psychologist or a certified counselor. However, I've seen a few psychological thrillers including The Prestige, Memento and Silence of the Lambs, and I've also read an article or two in an old issue of Psychology Today at my dentist's office.

Given those credentials, I believe that I'm more than qualified to dispense clinical diagnoses for fictional characters. That's why I decided to start this new series titled The Psychiatric Couch....


The first installment is an ensemble session - The Psychiatric Couch: Winnie the Pooh.  

As a child growing up and a parent, I read virtually every iteration of Disney's dysfunctional residents of the Hundred Acre Wood. While they're obviously cute-and-cuddly on the outside, there are deep psychological issues tucked snugly within their pillowy stuffed heads.

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Pooh Bear - suffers from an acute eating disorder with honey that borderlines addiction. Pooh also exhibits episodic dementia and exhibitionist tendencies given his reluctance to wear pants.

Tigger - traditional bi-polar traits marked by extreme mood swings from irrational exuberance to periods of near despair. His narcissistic behaviors, coupled with his savior complex, wreak havoc among the other patients at Hundred Acre Wood. Tigger makes Charlie Sheen look balanced and even keeled.

Piglet - has a variety of phobias that include creaking tree branches, small streams, gusting wind and his own shadow, all of which are compounded by the fact that he chooses to live in a forest. Perhaps this suggests a self loathing that manifests as masochistic leanings.

Eeyore - major clinical depression that defines and directs his day-to-day existence. This is seemingly caused by feelings of inadequacy driven by his lack of a tail and his need to overcompensate by wearing a prosthetic one made from fabric and a nail. Apparently he tries to self medicate by consuming large quantities of wild thistles.

Owl - exhibits symptoms of megalomania that approach delusional grandeur fed by his anti-social isolationism. He also has an irrational need to stand on books to make speeches at all picnics and birthdays, which suggests a Napoleon complex that drives his over-inflated intellect.

Kanga and Roo - an enabling, oedipal relationship that smothers and stifles Roo's maturation. Even their shared name suggests deep co-dependencies.

Rabbit - obsessive-compulsive personality disorder with a side helping of neurosis. His incessant, exacting attention to his gardening and cooking provides a glimpse of what Martha Stewart might be like on a cocaine bender.

Christopher Robbin - the obvious abandonment issues this child feels (seriously he plays alone in the woods all the time) help fuel his psychotic hallucinations that his stuffed animals actually come to life, which are only magnified by the fact that he's apparently forced to wear way-too-short shorts, Keds and socks that don't stay up.

Well, I think that adequately skewers the childhood classic by Alan Alexander Milne.

Question: What fictional character would you like to see on The Psychiatric Couch?