Batman and Psychology

The Book in 1 Sentence

The dark and brooding batman might be crazier than we think, but also might not be crazy at all.

Brief Review

Travis Langley does a fantastic job of describing Batman through the ages, from Adam West to Christian Bale, and then all of the rouges gallery. Both dispelling myths about homoeroticism and Batman's psyche then enshrining and elevating the relationships and responsibilities of both the Bat Family and the most popular enemies.

Why I Read this book

I have NEVER read a comic and only one graphic novel which was Star Wars related. However, I grew up pretending to be Superman and was Batman for Halloween one year. I am a product of the comic age and with the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who wouldn't want to know about the history and origin of Batman's life.

In-Depth Review (Favorite Quotes)

This book could easily be a Intro to Psychology as it talks about multiple things that armchair counselors recognize from media and other daily aspects to include Depression, D.I.D, psychopathy, and others. They are represented in each of the Rouges Gallery as well as within Batman.

I honestly really enjoyed this book as it gave me so much more information about the story of Batman as other than random cartoons as a kid, the Arkham video games, and then the Christian Bale series (These have a weird place in my mind as the theater that was shot up was where I watched movies as a teenager. I also did a marathon with a friend of mine in theaters at the release of the third one just in California where I was stationed at the time), I have never read anything or watched anything that I can remember. Well I have watched the nippled George Clooney Batman movies when they were on TNT or TBS when I was a kid, but I can't remember them nor do I care to watch them. Learning

This book is so well paced. I was really excited to go for my run to listen to this as I went. It was very technical and sometimes I got lost in the language and medical items that are well beyond my knowledge, but I was able to get my way back thanks to the comic storyline presentations.

How my life / behavior / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book.

Listening to this book, there were some presentations that provided information about my life and about diagnoses that I expected to be heaped on me as it was very common in the post 9/11 world for Veterans.

Specifically for information about my life. There is mention about the growth of children and their parents when talking about how certain relationship beats are important at certain times for development. As I have gotten older I can see where my life has gone differently than I expected and can see that maybe this is why.

Also, in the post 9/11 life, I fully expected to be diagnosed with PTSD. However, PTSD has 6 specific items that are required for the diagnosis and I do not meet most of them. It was really common for a while for military individuals post deployment to be inaccurately diagnosed with PTSD, but knowing now that there is 6 requirements in the DSM, I wasn't even close.

While the above two don't really talk about how my life will change, these two items as well as other did provide me with information to be cognizant of to ensure that I don't fall into certain traps.

Rating

I was really happy with this book. More in-depth than I expected with the medical information, but also with the comics. I am not really sure what I expected now that I write this, but this was a great book. I highly recommend that this be required reading or even as a class book to talk about how different aspects of mental health for students new to the field. An easy 8 that should be read whether you like comics or not.

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