xanderkh wrote:Which makes me wonder why anyone hasn't written a "NORMAL-coming-of-age" Eva fic, where the Angels are instead the various problems growing up that Shinji has to face.

I believe the thing you're looking for can already be found in the YA section of your nearest library or Barnes & Noble.

As someone that has actually suffered from clinical depression at an early age (from my 10 to 13 years) so strong as to actually consider suicide and suffer panic attacks, I can say from the deep of my heart that Evangelion is an amazing visceral and realistic take on the human psyche. My experience with depression and therapy triggered my interest in studying psychology and psychoanalysis, and the whole process made me a big fan of Eva. It is crystal clear to me, that the 4 main characters of Eva are aspects of Anno and his struggle for accepting himself, loving himself and finding a purpose in his life. Outside literature there have hardly existed any piece that came to the same level as Eva into dissecting its characters minds and exposing their inner basic defenses and anxieties. Ingmar Berman is the only name that comes to my mind on such an elaborated level.
It's also amazing how Eva incorporates very well some basic concepts of object-subject, introjection (Klenian theories), Oedipus Complex, narcissism, Defensive Mechanism, affection-attachment (psychology theories), and sex and death drives in it. It is all everything extremely well elaborated. If you are familiar with these concepts, if you are familiar with depression, you can clearly see how Evangelion is much more than an "angst mecha" with "superficial symbolic kabbalah stuff just to make it sound edgy". That couldn't be more possible wrong!

unitM wrote:Depression is, according to psychiatry(one of the pieces of literature Anno evidently read for the series) an over-inflated Adapted Child ego state.

That is not right. Ego is a psychoanalytical concept. Psychiatry deals mostly with physiologic desbalances on the brain and doesn't really try to explain how depression works inside our minds. And depression is not a "childish" or "immature" disease, It's about losing ones drive in keep on living. Nothing brings joy, everything becomes painful, we rather end it all than keep on living, without joy, life doesn't make more sense. (Elderly people going through a lot of pain often develop depression and die from lack of drive in their lives.) This is what real depression is about, and this is what Eva is all about. Also, despite depression being associated with unbalanced neurotransmitters, these chemical unbalances CAN ACTUALLY BE TRIGGERED by a constant state of stress and sadness in our mind. So yes, being sad can actually trigger physical changes in our bodies, such as clinical depression and its chemical unbalances even if you don't have genetic predisposition to that.

One can easily loses his joy in life when he is unable to develop proper affection and attachments with their parents when one is young. And that was PRECISELY what happened to all the main characters on the series. Asuka's mother devoted her whole life into her job and became bitter and crazy when her father abandoned her. Without ever giving the proper love that a little girl needed. Shinji had a megalomaniac mother that decided to abandon her only son at an early age to try and become a God! Ow boy...

All of them lacked proper parental figures when they were young, all of them had fathers and mothers that gave job more importance than their own offspring, It's only natural that all of them had lacked the ability to love themselves, they never understood what the unconditional affection and love of a mother is to internalize it as self-love when resolving their phallic stage.

Shinji never understanding what the simple unconditional love of a Mother is, could never understand his own intrinsic value. He could never learn to love himself thus he seeks acceptance of others desperately. By doing what others tell him, he feeds his weakened ego with crusts of small praises. It's a really sad existence, indeed.

Nemz wrote:it's been said that (mild) depression is actually just reality without the usual optimism filter the brain puts on life.

I don't know who says that but it sounds pretty frivolous to me. One mustn't confuse "mild" Depression with Distimia. Everyone gets a little sad in their life at some point. Everyone thinks life is shitty at some point, but that is still MILES AWAY from what even a "mild" depression really is.

Bagheera wrote:All of that's a matter of opinion, and not really on point IMO. I think it's quite fair to say that Gendo's reaction to his wife's disappearance and his treatment of Shinji as a result were both wildly inappropriate, and good examples of how depressed people tend to destroy their own lives due to inadequate coping mechanisms and an inability to accept their circumstances and move on. In the show this could be taken as an interesting critique of the mental health industry (or lack thereof) in Japan, same as the rather startling lack of support for the pilots throughout the show.

Indeed.

"There are chances to be happy anywhere, as long as you are alive".

That was one of the main messages of Eva, but actually internalizing it isn't a simple feat.
I have the impression that Japan is still much behind in proper taking care of their depressed population. Just giving anti-depressives around isn't a solution. Therapy is crucial in finding the real roots of one's depression and helping that person learning how to cope with reality and finding new drives to keep on living.

sephirotic wrote:That is not right. Ego is a psychoanalytical concept. Psychiatry deals mostly with physiologic desbalances on the brain and doesn't really try to explain how depression works inside our minds.

I agree, ego is a psychoanalytic concept. And that Berne used psychoanalysis as a strong foundation for what he wrote. But Berne did classify the 3 states our minds operate in as "ego states." His writing was psychoanalytical but he was a psychiatrist. I'll give you the point of psychiatry not focusing on depression but that doesn't mean that some psychiatrists haven't tried to classify it.

Berne wrote that the imbalances you mentioned in our brain is from the 3 different structures not healthily forming. His writing was heavily based on social interactions.

I am sure NGE takes bites from Berne's model of transactional analysis.

sephirotic wrote:And depression is not a "childish" or "immature" disease,

Firstly, depression is childish in 2 ways. It is an illness clouded with negative thinking. Negative thinking is not the only symptom of depression but a symptom of depression is negative thinking. The type of negative thinking associated with depression is delusional(literally classified as a "delusion" by Berns) and unrealistic. When we are depressed, our thoughts come out warped and exaggerated. The exaggerations are childish in nature because they are far-fetched - stretching something that wide is a childish endeavour. In other words, the nature of their inaccuracy is the childishness. They are 99% of the time not the reality of the situation, and if we attribute being an adult to words like responsible, realistic, and sober, than those thoughts(a symptom of depression) are childish.

Secondly, and this is according to the psychiatric model by Berns I've been mentioning(though I'll provide some Eva examples), depression more often than not lies in an imbalanced set of ego states, favoured towards the adapted child. As you stated yourself, depression is characterized by the low motivation to continue living. In other words, low vitality. I agree with that, and so does Berns. When someone behaves with their adapted child, they're behaving in line with rules given. An overpowering adapted child can cause people to be over-complying, to feel learned feelings of guilt, to avoid, to sulk, to try and please too many people, to be depressed under criticism and hurt when things don't go right... ask yourself, does that not define Shinji? Shinji is the characterization of someone who lives under a powerhouse of adapted childness.

There are other characters who exhibit clear instances of using this psychiatry model. For example, in a lot of the Asuka suicidal scenes, there are clear examples of scripting, which Berns also covers.

This is not to suggest that depression means people are childish but rather, depression(according to the Berns model) is often the result of someone relying on adaptations they draw from when they were learning to adapt as a child. Low vitality is characteristic in depression and the adapted child is a cut-off to the free stream of vitality and youth(the natural child). The thoughts we have in low moods are also childish too.

^ Have you ever read anyone else's work beside Berne's'? Based on the fact that he's the only one you mention (and keep mentioning), it seems unlikely.

Merkaba wrote:^ Have you ever read anyone else's work beside Berne's'? Based on the fact that he's the only one you mention (and keep mentioning), it seems unlikely.

Yeah, I actually realized an error I've been making on that note: I've been talking a lot about the guy, but realistically, psychoanalytic concepts are sort of boxed together, and Berne isn't the only nor the first guy pushing them.

But yeah I've read about other ones. Berne is just my most recent fascination I guess.