The mental illness of Heathcliff has its roots from the early childhood. In listing the emotional experience that he had gone through some facts ought to be mentioned. The first major impact in Heathcliff life is the fact that he was an orphan, that fact which might have put forced him to feel a sort of abandonment and isolation. The age of six could be somewhat early for a child to fully realize the situation he was put into, but at the same time it is an adequate age to comprehend that he does not belong to this family at first place.
The second emotional instability that might have affected Heathcliff in his childhood is the sense of contrast in which on one hand he is loved by Mr. Earnshaw who considers him as a son and even named him Heathcliff after his son who died in childbirth, and from the other hand the hate of Hindley who blames Heathcliff for distancing him from his father. With the death of Mr. Earnshaw, as much as Heathcliff gets close to his only friend Catherine, Hindley takes full control of the farmhouse and tries to humiliate Heathcliff. This period of Heathcliff’s life could be characterized as accumulation of anger and hate which is negated only with the presence of Catherine.
The peak of Heathcliffs’s anger is reached to the point when he to revenge extends beyond Hindley and start to accumulate his hate toward Linton, who consequently marries Catherine. As Catherine dies the period of emotional influence is finished for Heathcliff, and it can be seen that the following period can be characterized as the resulted reaction in the form of the revenge to all the people that were related in anyway to his suffering, or in medical terms the first period is the cause and the latter is the effect.
Diagnosis
According to the fact that Heathcliff as a patient is an assumption based on various facts, the diagnosis that could be put may consist of several disorders because of the different symptoms that are present. One of the later periods that describes in Heathcliff life, especially the period connected to the arrival of Lockwood shows that Heathcliff is suffering a paranoid personality disorder. The distrust of others, suspicion in others’ motives combined with social isolation and eccentric behavior are obvious marks of such disorder.
Another period which related to the time when his anger is peaked around the period of Catherine’s illness and death can point out to some symptoms that are characteristic of Antisocial Personality Disorder. This disorder has fully grown when his revenge extended to the heirs of his enemies. Viewing the world as “all evil”, rationalizing his behavior with only his motives, and the lack of empathy are some of the marks that could be used as a distinction of the Heathcliff’s disorder. Another confirmation is the fact that that this disorder is usually remits with time which is especially true for Heathcliff when he abandons his plans later in his life before his death.
Treatment
As most of the sufferings in Heathcliff’s life come from his love to Catherine and the following revenge to the ones who in his opinion are responsible for their separation, the treatment could assigned as a therapy that revolves around the possible disapproval of Catherine of the actions that were taken by him in a sense that – what would have Catherine did if she were here. Suggestions about responsibility and guilt could be a way to imply the idea that the children do not bear the sins of their parents and considering the case that most of Heathcliff’s so-called enemies had died by themselves, this could be an idea to turn his hate to passion to achieve with the children what he was not allowed to in his life.
Works Cited
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering heights. London: Penguin, 1994.
Open-Site. 2008. “Psychiatric Disorders”. Web.