Sorry about the constant HP posts, those followers who aren't fans! It's just on my mind a lot right now. This is a link to a good essay about Snape's psychology that I find interesting.

https://www.wattpad.com/1912021-the-psychobiography-of-severus-snape

Particularly interesting points, for me, are:

The link drawn between dependency on the dark arts and survival, which implies a parallel between the dark arts in Snape's life and self-harm in the lives of real people with mental health struggles. It also perhaps conjures a link between Sirius's survival in Azkaban and Snape's survival as a child, in that it alludes to the importance of obsessions, which distract the mind.

“One is nevertheless confronted by so many shortcomings than an essay-length review would be required to discuss and to provide illustrations of them. In a comparatively brief notice, such as this, it is only possible to cryptically point to a few representative flaws: (1) the repeated use of excessively long quotations (running sometimes to many paragraphs) where paraphrases would have been far preferable; (2) footnote citations that have no discernible relationship to the text or that are actually misleading; (3) the uncritical use and occasional distortion of documentary evidence; and (4) assertions and interpretations for which - so far as one can tell - there is not a shred of factual evidence, and, relatedly, repeated exaggerations. All this inexorably leads the academic historian to the question: Where does history end and historical fiction begin?” [my emphasis]

-  Jacob E. Cooke, Lafayette College, Book review of James T. Flexner’s The Young Hamilton: A Biography, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, January 1979. 

2-4 are really important points, and they’re depressingly common in biographies. 

Flexner gave Hamilton the psychobiography treatment, and the effects of that still reverberate in the world of Hamilton studies. Cooke, though critical of Flexner above, would also attempt this same treatment in his own Alexander Hamilton (1982). And that’s how we get analysis like this: 

In the only flash of self-knowledge in his long backward look at the affair, [Hamilton] admitted that perhaps...vanity drew him on. But it was vanity of a particular kind. Sheer pride in his power and prestige could have lured him into beginning the affair. But elementary self-interest should have made him cautious when Mr. Reynolds appeared, and driven him away altogether after he was actually blackmailed. But Hamilton was being driven, not by the pride of a man, but by the pride of a boy. The pretty woman in distress, who had already reappeared as Mrs. Arnold at West Point, was originally Rachel Faucett in the West India. He could be his father, saving her from John Lavien. He could be himself, consoling her after his ne’er-do-well father had vanished - only this time, his consolations could be effectual, because he was no longer a helpless boy, but secretary of the treasury, calling into activity the whole vigor of a nation.  - Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American

As a discipline, psychobiography is rather controversial. It attempts to uncover and understand the motivations of historic actors using psychological methods. In studies of the Founding Fathers, Fawn Brodie famously wrote Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. In Hamilton’s case, historians have seen his childhood in the Caribbean as a fertile ground to imagine all sorts of things that drive the adult Hamilton and explain his behavior. These books are somehow praised for giving us the “flesh-and-blood” person, though please think about how preposterous that sounds. 

As I see it, there are two main problems with psychobiography and Hamilton: 1) we simply do not have enough of the facts of Hamilton’s childhood with which to work (even better is when biographers don’t utilize Hamilton’s own words on the subject); 2) almost all of these biographers (Flexner, Cooke, Chernow among them) are not trained in psychoanalysis or really any psychological methods, instead employing armchair psychology to somehow draw connections between likely disparate events and painting a portrait of Hamilton’s personality and actions based on some sort of tormented childhood that they’ve imagined. It makes for exciting reading, but it’s not based on fact, and often not based even in decent speculation. Worse, it sometimes stands in the way of actual research, and we instead have a highly speculative, under-researched account of Hamilton’s life. And we arrive at the mess that is Flexner’s The Young Hamilton. 

For some criticisms by other bloggers of Flexner and his methods (and his strong misogyny) specifically, please see the following:

@schuylering on Flexner’s treatment of Elizabeth Hamilton

Personal Sidebar: I grew up in the area of the San Fernando Valley called Granada Hills, and when I was 10 years old I visited the city of Granada, Spain where I went to tour the Alhambra .

I had previously thought that Granada meant pomegranate, but from this page I see:

"The name of Granada does not mean pomegranate, even though it is homonymous with the Spanish word for that oriental fruit.  It is thought to come from an ancient, but unknown word for fortress, which the Romans Latinized as Garnatum.  The Arabs pronounced it Garnata and it entered Castilian as Granada."

The story of the founding of Granada in Spain also has some significance for me as well:

"In 711, the Moors, after the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, conquered large parts of the Iberian Peninsula, thus establishing Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain). Meanwhile, Jewish people had established a small community some twenty miles north of Illiberis, called "Gárnata" or "Gárnata al-yahud" ('Granada of the Jews').

The actual founding of present day Granada took place in the 11th century, during a civil war that ended the Caliphate in the early 11th century. In the aftermath of these wars, the North African general Ziri ibn Manad established an independent kingdom for himself, with Elvira as its capital. Because the city was situated on a low plain and, as a result, difficult to protect from attacks, the Zirid ruler decided to transfer his residence to the higher situated Jewish hamlet Gárnata. In a short time the Jewish village was transformed into one of the most important cities of Al-Andalus. In 1066 a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier of the Zirids, Joseph ibn Naghrela, and massacred about 4,000 Jews. This is arguably not the first big pogrom on European soil, as pogroms require a form of government approval or implicit authorization, and nothing in the historical record shows that the rulers supported the massacre in any way. By the end of the 11th century, the city had spread across the Darro to reach the hill of the future Alhambra, and included the Albayzín (also Albaicín or El Albaicín) neighborhood (a world heritage site). The Almoravid and Almohad dynasties ruled Granada in this period."

I seem to be finding a trail of diachronistic breadcrumbs leading me back to my unconscious roots. From La Belle Époque artists to Western mysticism to the hills of Granada and somehow to Classical mythology and shamanic influences. I seem to be a part of a tradition that I never knew existed.