Holden Caulfield Psychological Report

Psychological Report

I
Patient Name: Holden Caulfield
Age: 16-Sixteen Years of Age
Physical Description: Crew cut, 6ft 2in, Right side of head gray hair, Extremely skinny, Smokes, and Drinks a lot.
Family Relations: Phoebe: Relation Sister Age:10 Stage: Alive, Allie: Relation Brother Age: 11 Stage: Deceased, Mother & Father’s Status: Emotionally discontinued and doesn’t talk to Holden
Other significant relationships: Jane Gallagher

II
Historic Timeline:
Holden was first kicked out of Prep. School, called Pencey. Holden gets into a fight with Ackley because Holden likes Jane, and she is going on a date with Ackley. Holden gets a prostitute sent up to his room and decides to have a conversation with her instead of sex. Holden then thinks

about committing suicide by jumping off his porch but doesn’t want his body to be seen. In the future, Holden gives $10 to the nuns he met while on a date with Sally. Another thing that was important was that Holden bought Phoebe a Record called Little Shirley Beans but drops and shatters it and then contemplates death at the frozen pond, but distracts himself with the “Ducks” that were at the pond. Holden explains the change while in the museum.

III
Beliefs/Values
Holden constantly gets irritated by other people in his life, this is a sign of depression.

One thing that Holden believes is that the world is unscrupulous and is full of phonies. An example of this would be, “One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. That's all. They were coming in the goddam window. For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life. Ten times worse than old Thurmer” (Salinger 13). In three sentences, Holden talked about multiple people being phonies. This could contribute to depression, the feeling of hopelessness for society and himself. Holden values very little, but one thing he did value was his relationship with Phoebe, an example of this was when they were talking, "’Wait a second—take the rest of your dough, too.’ I started giving her the rest of the dough she'd lent me.’You keep it. Keep it for me,’ she said. Then she said right afterward—’Please.’ That's depressing, when somebody says ‘please’ to you. I mean if it's Phoebe or somebody. That depressed the hell out of me. But I put the dough back in my pocket” (Salinger 211). Holden values that Phoebe is always there and wants to give the money back to

her.

IV
Self-Perception:
Holden Caulfield almost always says that he is lonesome. “When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat-check room, I was crying and all. I don’t know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (Salinger 153). Holden is very self-conscious, and views himself as a pacifist, even though he fights, and punched the garage windows out when Allie died. He usually sees himself as depressed and hopeless. Sometimes Holden feels like he wants to die, but one time he prayed to be able to get to the other side of the road without dying. Holden shows that sex is saddening, and degrading. He would rather have a conversation than having sex, an example of that was in chapter 13, “‘Sunny.’ she said. ‘Let’s go, hey.’ ‘Don’t you feel like talking for awhile?’ I asked her” (Salinger 95). Holden didn’t have sex, instead, he tried talking to the prostitute. Holden expresses that sex is degrading when the prostitute was trying to have sex. He said, “It was a childish thing to say, but I was feeling so damn peculiar… She sat down in the chair next to the desk again. She didn’t like it, though, you could tell” (Salinger 95). The reason he sees himself as lonesome and self-conscious is because of his depression. He feels like there is no hope, therefore he perceives sex as degrading. It just makes his feeling of being lonesome even worse.

V
How Others Perceive Patient:
Other people view Holden as a very argumentative and aggressive person. They also feel like he is conscientious in his own way. Holden always wants things done “right”, although Holden perceives rights and wrongs differently than other people. Stradlater makes Holden feel worthless when he goes on a date with Jane and doesn’t even know her name. “I tried to sock him, with all my might, right smack in the toothbrush, so it would split his goddam throat open. Only, I missed. I didn’t connect. All I did was sort of get him on the side of the head or something” (Salinger 43). Stradlater sees Holden as aggressive and argumentative because of the argument about Jane and the fighting. Ernest’s mother thinks Holden is a nice and angelic boy because Holden went to Pencey and he complements Ernest. “‘ He adapts himself very well to things. He really does. I mean he really knows how to adapt himself.’ ‘Do you think so?’ she asked me. She sounded interested as hell. ‘Ernest? Sure’” (Salinger 55).

VI
Issues Patient Is Dealing With:
Allie’s Death: Holden struggles with Allie’s death. Allie died of leukemia, and Holden constantly thinks about him. One spot that Holden deeply thinks about him is in chapter 25. “Then I started doing something else. Every time I’d get to the end of a block I’d make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I’d say to him, ‘Allie, don’t let me disappear” (Salinger 198). Allie interferes with Holden’s daily life. Although Holden wishes he could die and go see his brother, he cannot do that because of his bond with Phoebe. After Holden drops the record that was supposed to be for Phoebe, Holden starts to think about death, “That worried me. I thought probably I’d get pneumonia and die” (Salinger 154). These events that occurred leads to the notorious depression that Holden is diagnosed with.
VII
Explanation of Disorder: Clinical depression is when you have a heavy sadness for long periods of time, you may have feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of misery. Sometimes people do drugs or hurt themselves due to depression. In Holden's case, he smokes. An example of this is in Chapter 14, “AFTER OLD SUNNY was gone, I sat in the chair for a while and smoked a couple of cigarettes. It was getting daylight outside. Boy, I felt miserable. I felt so depressed, you can’t imagine” (Salinger 98). Depression can be caused because of a change or loss. Holden lost Allie which is a contributor to his depression. One symptom of depression is poor performance in school, which Holden follows as well.

VIII
Diagnosis:
After a careful analysis of Holden Caulfield, he is diagnosed with clinical depression.

]Holden has several treatment options, such as counseling. If he chooses to counsel then he will undergo several tests and a weekly encounter with a professionally trained staff member to talk about his emotions and work them out. Another option would be to go to a therapy. If he chooses therapy, then he would be sent to one of the facilities with other people that have similar conditions. He would constantly have relaxing areas, and different therapy specialists to help treat his conditions. People around Holden do not need to treat him differently. Once he gets help from one of the professional offers the company allows, he will be back to smiling and seeing the bright side of day

again.

Works Cited

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Little, Brown and Company, 1951.
“Depression In-Depth Report.” The New York Times, NY Times.