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I am currently taking a childhood trauma class for a social work degree, and my professor said this comment:

The most unbelievable aspect about Harry Potter isn't the magical world, it's that Harry has survived 17 years of abusive parenting without any trauma symptoms.

That got me thinking: Is there a canon reason why Harry doesn't have strong symptoms of trauma from his time at the Dursleys? The Dursleys' treatment of Harry certainly meets the criteria for child abuse.

I do not want an opinion based answer (I.e., Harry's a wizard so he's stronger). I want to know if there is any canonical reason why Harry lacks any trauma symptoms.

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    Who says he doesn't? That wasn't what the story was about, so Rowling didn't write about it.
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Commented Dec 8, 2021 at 15:49
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    I dunno about "well-adjusted". I recall Harry having significant anger issues, especially in Book 5, though that may be partly due to Voldemort's influence.
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Dec 8, 2021 at 15:57
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    Might want to adjust the time frame a little, though -- Harry was a year old when Dumbledore left him with the Dursleys, and only 11 when he started spending 9-10 months out of the year away from them, with people who actually liked and cared for him (at least outside class when in Gryffindor Tower).
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Commented Dec 8, 2021 at 15:57
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    Not everyone reacts to trauma the same way. Harry has generally shown a great deal of emotional resilience in the face of stress, so perhaps this is another aspect of that.
    – Adamant
    Commented Dec 8, 2021 at 16:06
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    Is "not developing trauma symptoms after an abusive childhood" unusual enough to require explanation? Childhood trauma isn't my field, but I know in the PTSD field, there's tremendous individual variation in the extent to which people develop symptoms after traumatic experiences. Lots of people experience the kinds of things that cause PTSD, and then go on to just...not get PTSD.
    – A_S00
    Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 19:18

3 Answers 3

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+100

If you're asking for canon, I think the closest thing I can find is the prophecy and the discussion of it in the Horcruxes chapter in the Half-Blood Prince. The prophecy about Harry & Voldemort says

The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have a power the Dark Lord knows not

Harry & Dumbledore are discussing the prophecy and Dumbledore suggests that the 'power the Dark Lord knows not' is Harry's ability to love. Which Dumbledore says

...given everything that has happened to you, is a great remarkable thing

and then goes on to explain why this is so significant, i.e. his ability to love has kept him from being drawn to the dark arts.

Harry despite your privileged insight into Voldemort's world...you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort's followers

Of course I haven't...he killed my mum and dad!

You are protected, in short, by your ability to love

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    This is a great answer. Please expand it with quotes and I will accept it and award it a 100 bounty.
    – TheAsh
    Commented Dec 11, 2021 at 17:13
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    DatabaseShouter I echo what @TheAsh just said; quotes would be helpful here and the bounty is yours. Commented Dec 12, 2021 at 21:43
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He reacts fairly normally for someone who has suffered the sort of abuse he has

Harry being physically abused by the Dursleys is largely fan-canon. Instead, they provide the bare necessities of life to him, and deprive him of positive emotional interaction. We see this reflect in Harry's actions in the book, where he's grateful for everything he has, even extremely mundane things like as much food as he cares to eat, or a comfortable bed. He does not innately feel he deserves these things, so he stays grateful. Similarly, he treasures his interactions with others, and is constantly trying to find ways to make them happy since they've made him so happy, and he makes friends with pretty much anyone who doesn't push him away. Lastly, because the closest to success he's managed for positive interactions with adults in his life is by being polite and proper and quiet, that's how he deals with the adults in his life. He treats most of his professors with respect, and he doesn't bother them with his troubles, because he knows that adults, even when given the truth, will never step in for him.

Lastly, he shows a disregard for his own safety and an unhealthy desire to be useful to the people around him. As with his politeness to other adults, Harry likely got the closest to approval from the Dursleys for being useful whether it was doing chores or being their emotional punching bag. And, well, he's probably more than a bit conditioned to the idea that disobeying orders from an adult can lead to punishment, so he barely even questions his role as the Chosen One, accepting that role and performing to his best ability.

Some aspects probably are abnormal, but might just a matter of his personal reaction

Realistically, I'd argue that Harry ought to show some negative traits that do not show up in the books. For example, having seldom received more than adequate food from his family, I'm surprised there's not more food hoarding going on. We do see a bit of it with how he splurges on the sweets from the trolley, but I think that was in part because he wanted to get them for Ron. As someone who has likely gone hungry any time he was locked in his closet without dinner, I would have expected him to be sneaking food off of the table in the Hall, caching candy, etc.

Also, Harry takes people at face value more than I would expect from someone who grew up in an emotionally abusive household. He doesn't look for ulterior motives, or assume that people are only being nice to him in preparation to betray him. While, as others note in the comments, he can have a bit of a temper, he seldom just lashes out at people, or freezes them out.

But, in the end, it might just be who he is

Ultimately, though, people react to trauma in different ways, and he may have had more positive models in the people he interacted with outside of the Dursleys. He may have recognized, if only subconsciously, that the Dursleys were outliers, and he's built his identity and belief in how people ought to interact by viewing others, whether in real life or via popular media. We also don't know exactly when the Dursleys became so cold to him. It could be that, in his early years, they did treat him as lost family, and it was only later, as feats of accidental magic occurred, the Dursleys started getting more weird interactions with Wizarding folk approaching Harry on the street, and Harry started to look more like his parents, that they turned on him.

And, well, it's a children's book and they often gloss over the negative effects of childhood neglect. Hansel and Gretel didn't show signs of trauma. Cinderella didn't show signs of trauma. Little Orphan Annie is a constant ray of sunshine. It's not realistic, but maybe the realism is not necessary.

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    +1, though I'm not sure about physical abuse being "mostly fanon". Granted, I'm not in the loop with general fan speculation, but while we don't explicitly see Harry's uncle beating him (iirc he has choked him), it is heavily implied that he has. From the general way Vernon handles Harry, to threats of violence, to Harry having "learned to be out of arm's reach" when possible. Those to me sound like very definite signs of physical abuse. I suspect that it's something the books tended to gloss over because Rowling intended them for young children (particularly the first two or three books).
    – user93707
    Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 12:19
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    There is also definitely mention of Petunia trying to smack him with a frying pan at one point, which granted, could be taken as a less malicious threatening swing with no intent to connect, but it fits in the pattern that they are willing to hurt him when he does wrong. Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 12:57
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    I'll yield that they're definitely threatening, but some of the fanfics (or people influenced by them) inflate that to Harry regularly getting beaten, arms broken, hands held to stoves, etc. Kind of like how Naruto often gets depicted as being constantly attacked instead
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 15:17
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    This is in desperate need of quotes or pointers to specific examples. I recall few of Harry's reactions being beyond what I'd expect of any child who suddenly found himself rich, in a magical world, and living in a cool castle. If you're wanting to argue that his reactions are beyond the norm, then you need something to show it with.
    – J. Mini
    Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 22:34
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    +1, but I must say that I'm uncomfortable with the routine assumption that every tough childhood /is/ abusive and that every victim of childhood abuse /has/ to have scars. It's been promoted to a trope to which every author, journalist and do-gooder apparently feels zhe /has/ to subscribe, risks generating sufficient noise that people become inured to undeniable examples, completely disregards the varied susceptibility that people of all ages have to stress, and dehumanises the putative victim by demanding that zhe /must/ conform to a stereotype. Commented Dec 11, 2021 at 19:46
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Another softening reason for the trauma could be that, Dursleys are not Harry’s actual parents. Harry learns that his parents loved him so much, they were very respected people and they didnt leave him by choice. They were murdered while protecting him.

The trauma is much more severe when the abusers are your own blood, because the norm is that your parents love you no matter what, and when that doesnt happen, you feel much more damaged. Dursleys are strangers to Harry, he also has no emotional connection to them, doesnt have a reason to expect affection from them. First book , zoo scene, third book, aunt marge scene, he actually enjoys abusing them in return when he gets the chance. You know, you dont get trauma when the prison warden doesnt love you.

By the fifth book, he even saves Dudley from dementors, but by that time his tendency to be the hero is much more stronger than his hate for them.

Of course we are only witnessing the events after Harry learns the truth about his parents with Hagrids visit, so he might be acting differently before that.

Nevertheless, there is one sign, quite early in the series. when he waits for the sorting hat, he has all kinds of self-doubt for his magical heritage and thinks if its a joke by the Dursleys. I dont think that would be the case if he was raised by Potters.

On the other hand, when Malfoy wants to be friends with him on the train , his lack of friendship in his childhood life doesnt kick in and he rejects Malfoy.

Lastly, I think he becomes more damaged/obsessed when he sees his parents in the Mirror of Erised for the first time because with that, he actually understand what he had been missing for too long. Its only Dumbledore that saves him from the obsession.

While talking about Dumbledore, I think he is a much better subject to talk about childhood trauma and its effects on adult life. He has it all, partly because his problems were with his own blood. Ask you teacher what they think about Dumbledore ?

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    "you dont get trauma when the prison warden doesnt love you" - tell that to survivors of concentration camps. Somebody having the power to either protect or harm you, and choosing harm, is going to cause trauma, no matter how they came by that power.
    – IMSoP
    Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 11:42
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    I would point out that Harry was an infant when he arrived at the Dursleys' home. We retain very little memory from that early in our lives. In practical terms, Harry's entire childhood was with the Dursleys. Petunia and Vernon would've filled the role of his parents, not his wardens. As his de facto parent figures, they definitely neglected and abused him.
    – Marsh
    Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 22:03
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    Good point about the Mirror of Erised, which is one aspect that FuzzyBoots is missing. Had Dumbledore not intervened by simply removing the temptation from his access, what would have happened to Harry? Seems very much like how other abused children might escape into drugs.
    – Kirt
    Commented Dec 11, 2021 at 1:17

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