Werewolf Psychology

Werewolves were common in Greece, Rome, and even the East; but only in the Middle Ages were they seen as creatures subjected to a kind of transformation, that is, to a human part in constant struggle with its animal nature. Only then can we imagine an outline of the werewolf’s psychology.

Previously, the poet Ovid made an approach to the werewolf psychology by detailing the metamorphosis of Lycaon, whose symptoms resemble medieval hydrophobia, or, in our times, rabies.

The verses that tell about the transformation of the Lycaon could well be transferred to someone who manifests the signs of rage:

In vain he tried to speak; from that moment
its jaws were filled with slime,
and his thirst could only be quenched with blood.

In this sense, rage does not contradict the mechanics of the legend, which states that someone transforms into a werewolf after being bitten by one of them.

As the human being strengthened his social skills, animal instincts, so to speak, became more and more unrecognizable. One of the first symptoms of the werewolf is a trait called atavism, that is, a regression to an ancestral type of temperament and behavior.

In the Middle Ages, the idea that a werewolf was ultimately a sick person, a victim. The approach to the phenomenon of werewolves was quite simple. If you were a werewolf you simply had to die burned, walled, stoned, drowned, hanged, staked, disjointed, quartered, dismembered, etc. It was not until the 17th century that the possibility that lycanthropy was, after all, a mental disorder began to be considered.

Englishman Richard Burton was one of the first to address lycanthropy as a mental disorder, although from a gastric point of view. In his treatise of 1621, The Anatomy of Melancholy, he suggests the possibility of a wolfish madness, that is, of an intimate patient’s belief  about an internal nature associated with the wild wolf. The reason for this disease is due to a mood deficiency, an excess of ”bile” that, according to the belief at the time, ended up staying in the brain, facilitating all kinds of abnormal behavior.

It is not unimaginable how easy it was to persuade werewolves to confess to their crimes. If there is a personality inclined to confess his acts, whether real or imagined, that is the insane one, that is, the one who suffers from hallucinations.

One of the most infamous werewolves in history (although not in his werewolf role) was Adolf Hitler.

In a study carried out in 1951 by the British anthropologist Robert Eisler: Man into Wolf, it is stated that Adolf Hitler manifested some symptoms of lycanthropy. It is based on the statements of numerous close witnesses, who on various occasions reported Adolf Hitler’s tendency to throw himself to the ground in moments of great emotional tension, and even chew on the carpet or furniture during these outbursts. Robert Eisler approaches these accounts with great caution, but considering Hitler’s well-known masochistic and sadistic leanings, it is not impossible to consider that he suffered from lycanthropic manic states.

Psychoanalyst Nandor Fodor hypothesizes that lycanthropy is a natural psychic mechanism even in people who do not display werewolf behaviors. Furthermore, he affirms that many people process their subconscious problems through violent lycanthropic dreams. In this sense we can talk about dream werewolves, or men who transform into wolves in the uncertain orb of their dreams.

One of the traits of the werewolf(ism) that Nandor Fodor argues, manifests itself through dreams, particularly dreams that contain metamorphosis, transformations, crimes, blood, and the presence of the occasional werewolf. According to Nandor Fodor’s theory, the werewolf is less a psychological condition than a tool of the psyche to release its atavistic valves, that is, to relieve the tensions of our animal nature without putting ourselves at risk in the eyes of society.

https://dimidesan.com/renfield-syndrome-and-vampirism-as-a-mental-illness/

https://dimidesan.com/the-vampire-ritual-book/

https://dimidesan.com/what-it-feels-like-to-be-bitten-by-a-vampire/