Anakin Skywalker, the rebellious young Jedi who embraced the dark side of the Force and became Darth Vader, suffered from classic symptoms of borderline personality disorder, according to a psychologist who used the Star Wars characters as a teaching aid.
"I had watched the two prequel movies [Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith], and it was during my residency in psychiatry while trying to explain borderline personality disorder to medical students that I thought of Anakin," Eric Bui, a psychiatrist at Toulouse University Hospital in France, told Live Science.
Young Anakin displayed six of nine classic traits of the mental malady, and Vader also would qualify as a classic borderline type, according to Bui's research and his letter to the editor of Psychiatry Research, which will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal.
The takeaway? Anakin, and Vader, should have seen a shrink.
"I believe that psychotherapy would have helped Anakin and might have prevented him from turning to the dark side," Bui said. "Using the dark side of the Force could be considered as similar to drug use: It feels really good when you use it, it alters your consciousness and you know you shouldn't do it."
Full story: "The Psychology of Darth Vader Revealed": Live Science
[via The Escapist]
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