Doctor Who, a BBC science fiction television series that has been running for over 50 years, is extremely popular with both children and adults. It has also been adapted to audio dramas (Big Finish Productions), as well as novels, comic books, and a single full feature film. The show is about an alien from planet Gallifrey, who calls himself the Doctor. The Doctor has a time machine, called the T.A.R.D.I.S. (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), which looks like a blue police call box. The T.A.R.D.I.S. is bigger on the inside than the outside and can travel through both time and space, sometimes even going where the Doctor wants it to go.
The Doctor is of a race who calls itself “Time Lords.” The Time Lords can time travel and have the ability to regenerate into a new body, giving them multiple lifespans. Each of the Doctor’s regenerations has had a new personality, as well as new quirks and preferences, and each is referred to in chronological order, starting with the First Doctor, and then Second Doctor, and so on. The Doctor also frequently travels with companions, often from Earth but sometimes they are from other planets, including his home planet of Gallifrey.
The Doctor, sometimes accidentally and sometimes on purpose, shows up where there is trouble, usually from some form of an alien invasion, and saves the lives of others. The Doctor and his companions show up in the place of crisis, usually risking their lives to protect other people, planets, or even the universe. Having traveled through time and space, the Doctor has interacted with many different species, has witnessed much genocide and trauma, and is someone many children identify with as a kind of science fiction superhero.
Parasocial Interactions
The series has become extremely popular throughout the world and across generations. What is it that speaks to the different types of viewers and what makes the show this popular? One possibility has to do with the way the show portrays different psychological topics, such as grief, depression, and making difficult life choices, which allows the viewers to feel connected with the characters and events they are viewing.
This connection with a fictional character or a story is referred to as parasocial interaction. Parasocial interaction has been shown to be helpful with distress management and compassion toward others. In fact, several recent studies demonstrated that identification with fictional characters, such as Harry Potter, Batman, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer can help children cope with painful emotional experiences, practice acceptance, be more compassionate of one-self and others. In addition, studies find that some fictional characters can serve as positive role models for healthy eating. For instance, scientists Nelson and Norton demonstrated that when participants identify with a superhero, they are more likely to offer help to someone in trouble. In addition, Italian scientists Vezzali and colleagues found that children who read passages from the Harry Potter books relating to prejudice were more likely to be compassionate toward members of stigmatized groups compared to children that did not read these passages.
Overall, the research related to parasocial interaction suggests that identifying with fictional characters creates a positive psychological affect on the participants. Specifically the research suggests that by identifying with fictional characters, people are less likely to feel alone in their psychological struggles, are more likely to practice self-acceptance, and are more likely to become compassionate toward individuals who are going through a hard time. Would a similar positive effect be found with Doctor Who? In order to answer this question, we first examine the psychological themes represented in the series and then discuss and demonstrate how the series can be used to help people manage psychological disorders.
GRIEF AND DEPRESSION
In his thousands years of living the Doctor experiences a lot of pain and hardship. He loses a number of his companions, as well as his wife, River Song. The Doctor frequently struggles when it comes to coping with his losses, usually secluding himself or suppressing his emotions. As he loses one of his companions, Clara Oswald, he spends over two billion years in a time energy loop, too depressed and unwilling to face his pain. The Doctor clearly feels extremely attached to the people in his life and, like many people, struggles with coping with loss.
PTSD
The Doctor faces much destruction and death and fought in the Time War, the war between the Doctor’s home planet, Gallifrey, and their arch nemeses, the Daleks. The Time War is especially painful for him to bear as it leads to the presumed destruction of most of his people and his planet. The War Doctor dies shortly after the Time War and regenerates into his next self, the Ninth Doctor.
The Ninth Doctor appears to carry more anger and irritability with him than his predecessors. He is also aloof and hypervigilant. He avoids talking to Rose, his companion, about what happened to him during the Time War and about what happened to his people. During one of their adventures the Doctor and Rose find themselves in a museum, which contains a Dalek (“Dalek”). The Doctor gets uncharacteristically angry and attempts to torture and destroy the Dalek. His behavior is consistent with that of someone who has posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in particular, with the set of symptoms typical of individuals with combat trauma. Seeing an enemy, or any reminder of the traumatic event, may trigger certain symptoms, like intrusive thoughts, fight-or-flight response, aggression, and anger.
Anxiety and fear
The Doctor and his companions constantly face their fears. In one of the episodes (“The God Complex”) the 11th Doctor and his companions stay in a particularly ominous hotel, the residents of which experience their worst phobias. In fact, the more the hotel residents allow their fears to control them, the more likely they are to be affected by them.
In another episode (“Listen”), the 12th Doctor and his companion, Clara, help a little boy, Rupert, overcome his fear of the monster under the bed. Rupert is too scared of the monster to even check to see if it really exists. The Doctor in turn teaches Rupert a valuable lesson about courage by telling him that fear is a superpower. He informs him that fear makes his heart beat faster, his adrenaline allows him to be faster and fight harder. The Doctor even says that fear is Rupert’s superpower.
Both of these episodes demonstrate how one’s own fears and anxieties can hold them back. In fact, the show demonstrates a phenomenon that many people engage in when faced with their fears – experiential avoidance. Experiential avoidance refers to any attempt to lessen one’s psychological discomfort. In most situations, experiential avoidance may provide short-term relief while ensuring long-term distress. The series does a great job of demonstrating this. Although ignoring the monster may temporarily relieve Rupert’s fear, in the long term he is still afraid of the monster, which only serves to reinforce the idea that he is not capable of dealing with it. On the other hand, when he is able to face it, Rupert is terrified in the moment but in the long term is able to overcome his fear.
Compassion
One of the Doctor’s most prominent traits is his sense of compassion. Compassion refers to the ability to sense the pain of another individual, experience the desire to help them, as well as to take an action to alleviate their pain. The Doctor has compassion for his friends, for beings he has never previously met, and even for his worst enemies.
The Doctor’s arch nemesis, Davros, the creator of the murderous Dalek race, often teases the Doctor, stating that his compassion is a sign of weakness. The Doctor disagrees with him, even saving Davros’ life on several occasions. These acts of compassion allow the Doctor to remain true to himself even under difficult circumstances. Combat veterans, who similarly to the Doctor are able to practice compassion, are less likely to develop PTSD and are more likely to recover from it. Presumably, heroic actions and compassion practices also help them better cope with their traumatic experiences.
Resilience and values
What ultimately helps the Doctor recover from his biggest losses is his commitment to his values of helping others. When the Doctor is on a mission, he seems to come to life even if he is undergoing severe depression from a painful loss. For example, after losing his friends Amy and Rory, the devastated Doctor secludes himself in Victorian London. However, when homicidal snowmen start causing trouble, the Doctor eventually reunites with his friends, Vastra, Jenny, and Strax as they join forces to stop them.
Connecting with his values by maintaining a compassionate stance and reuniting with his friends allows the Doctor to find the very resilience he needs to recover from his loss. Indeed, this process resembles that which would normally be most advantageous for recovery. People who are able to stay true to their values and form social connections are more likely to be resilient in the face of psychological difficulty compared to those who engage in experiential avoidance.
Pilot Study using Doctor Who
Parasocial connections appear to help people better connect with their own experiences, possibly leading to a reduction in experiential avoidance. Since Doctor Who is a popular series that deals with many psychological issues, we wanted to see if this series would be effective in helping children in terms of depression reduction and an increase in social connection and compassion to others as a form of resilience training. We received special permission from BBC to use the Doctor and Doctor Who related images and works for this camp for educational purposes. This study took place in a 2-week Wizards & Warriors summer camp. As a part of the study, the camp directors provided the campers with compassion and acceptance training through learning about the kinds of struggles the Doctor had to face, as well as through direct lessons lead by an actor dressed as the Doctor.
The campers spent two weeks in a co-ed overnight camp, where an actor portraying the Doctor from the popular BBC television show, Doctor Who, verbally taught and modeled to them compassion, acceptance, loss, and courage (see below for specifics). Camp counselors and administrators were present throughout the training.We used 64 children ages 9-17, with (16 girls and 48 boys) for this study. As a part of the study the young campers were asked to fill out the study-related surveys online immediately prior to attending the camp, immediately after the completion of the camp, and one month after the completion of the camp (follow-up). All of these survey responses were anonymous.
The campers filled out the standard demographic form, listing their age, gender/sex, and ethnicity. Social connectedness was measured via the Social Connectedness Scale, depression was assessed using the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, and compassion toward others was assessed via the Compassion toward Others Scale. Finally, the participants’ qualitative responses regarding their experiences at the camp were also collected.
On the first day of camp, the campers were introduced to the Doctor (most children were already familiar with the character). The Doctor educated the campers about his past adventures, teaching them about the various creatures he had come across, the many villains he helped defeat, as well as the various losses he endured. Through acting out certain scenarios, similar to the TV series, the campers were taught compassion, acceptance, tolerance, and courage.
For example, the Doctor introduced the campers to actors dressed as goblins, grotesque creatures, who were experiencing a challenge and were feared and distrusted by many based on their appearance. The Doctor appealed to the campers’ sense of compassion by encouraging them to identify with what the creatures were feeling and take a compassionate action. This served as a metaphor to teach the campers to practice acceptance toward other individuals, as well as their own emotions, which at times can be intimidating, at least on the surface level.
In addition, the campers were able to learn how to cope with loss and death. In one particular lesson, the Doctor was taken by an anthropomorphized representation of Death in order to protect the campers. During this experiential lesson, the children were able to experience grief in an interactive theatrical fashion with the Doctor explaining that it is acceptable to grieve and elaborating on the concepts of loss and acceptance to them before he was taken. Just as the Doctor helped the little boy, Rupert, overcome his fear of the monster under the bed, he also helped the campers face their fear of loss and grief when Death took the Doctor.
The results found that children demonstrated significant improvements across all measures after the two weeks of Doctor Who camp training. Specifically, the compassion toward other people scores significantly improved after the 2-week intervention and continued to improve even after the participants left the camp. In contrast, the depression scores significantly improved immediately after the training but began to dip again during the follow-up.
Finally, social connectedness was significantly improved after the camp training. These results after just a few weeks of exposure to the fictional character are exciting in that they demonstrate that it might not take much to develop a significant change in children’s mental health and that this change can potentially be produced by identification with a TV character, such as the Doctor, or the character’s emotional experience.
In addition, the qualitative responses seem to indicate that the participants enjoyed their experience at the camp. Overall, 96% of the participants reported that they enjoyed their camp experiences.
“It has given me more than expected. I never expected to be changed this much. [The camp] has done its best to make me a better person.”
More than 81% stated that they were able to form new and meaningful social connections:
“It gave me friends. Friends that would help me and lift me up”
and
“My friends felt almost as close as family”
Many participants reporting that they felt more connected to the Doctor and other campers than to their usual friends and family.
At follow-up many participants reported that they still maintain contact with the people they met in the camp. In addition, the majority of the participants also reported that connecting with the Doctor taught them to be more compassionate both toward themselves:
“Because I spent so much time in my character’s shoes, it is definitely easier for me to see things from another perspective…and this has helped me be more compassionate towards myself and others when I otherwise wouldn’t have been, because I can look at myself as just another human in need”
and compassionate toward others:
“It taught me about the importance and difference in everyone.”
Finally, 86% reported an increased sense of confidence, which is thought to be an indication of depression reduction.
IMPLICATIONS
This study demonstrated that the Doctor Who character can be used to teach children about compassion and social connection. Specifically, since the majority of the children were able to identify with the Doctor, who was portrayed by an actor versed in the character as depicted in the television series, Doctor Who, many reported that they were able to become more compassionate toward themselves and others, fostering improved social connections. Even though the children were not strangers to social environments, spending the majority of their school year surrounded by peers, most reported that they felt more connected to the Doctor and to the other children at the camp compared to other people in their lives after only two weeks of training. This connection with the Doctor, and his explanation of his various life experiences as depicted by the television series, allowed the children to explore their own feelings and identify with the behavior that the Doctor modeled. The children were able to practice self-acceptance, as well as acceptance of others, they reported increases in self-esteem, and were more likely to understand and identify with others.
In his billion years in existence the Doctor has been through numerous tragedies, struggled with grief, depression, connection with others, posttraumatic stress, and other struggles that many people face. Given his diverse experiences, there is some version of the Doctor or one of his companions to which nearly any individual can relate. Given the results of this study and the research on parasocial interaction, the Doctor Who series can serve to help the viewers feel less alone in their difficult experience, might potentially reduce some of the painful emotional symptoms, as well as promote acceptance. Research related to acceptance suggests that the willingness to experience all emotional states (painful or pleasant) leads to better physical and mental health. If the connection to a fictional (or real-life) hero can elicit a higher degree of acceptance and a lower degree of experiential avoidance, then it is feasible that the connection with fictional characters and other personal heroes can potentially allow the individual to more adaptively cope with their experiences. Current research supports the notion that compassion and social connection leads to a release of oxytocin, a hormone that helps soothe the body at a time of stress. Specifically, oxytocin lowers blood pressure and cortisol, makes people less susceptible to pain, and promotes physical and emotional healing. Since oxytocin is likely to be released when someone experiences a connection to or compassion toward other people, and since people can experience compassion toward fictional characters, then it stands to reason that an emotional connection with a fictional character can potentially be beneficial for someone’s physical and emotional health. This may mean that watching Doctor Who might positively change some viewers’ hormonal as well as emotional state thereby improving their mental and physical health. However, additional research is needed to further support this claim.
Although the results of the current study are promising, there are several limitations, which need to be mentioned. Specifically, the present study lacks a control group and lacks diversity in the participants and fictional character representations. Future directions of this research should include a randomized controlled trial with one group of participants randomly assigned to learn about compassion from an actor portraying a fictional character, whereas the other group would be exposed to the same training but without the fictional character connection. In addition, more diverse participants and fictional characters would be needed for future research.
Overall, it seems likely that the Doctor Who series can be beneficial to its viewers in a number of different ways. In addition to its entertainment value, the series also appears to have a therapeutic potential. It is possible that certain episodes might be used in therapy to help patients with specific disorders, such as anxiety or PTSD. For example, Veterans who struggle with PTSD after exposure to war may benefit from watching the “Dalek” episode, in which the Doctor encounters a member of the alien race that killed many of his people. This episode can be used to help individuals with PTSD identify some of the symptoms they may experience, such as fear, anger, distrust, and hypervigilance. At the same time, this episode can also help the viewers to potentially develop a sense of compassion toward individuals that belong to the opposing group. By getting to know the Dalek, the Doctor reluctantly realizes that in a lot of ways they are the same. This kind of an understanding can reduce the feelings of hostility, anger, hypervigilance, and increase empathy and compassion, which can help people reduce their symptoms.
Acknowledgement:
The authors would like to thank the BBC for granting Wizards & Warriors Camp permission to incorporate Doctor Who into the summer camp activities.
References
Angold, A., Costello, E. J., Messer, S. C., Pickles, A., Winder, F., & Silver, D. (1995). Development of a short questionnaire for use in epidemiological studies of depression in children and adolescents. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, (5), 237-249.
Brown, J. S., Elliott, S. A., Boardman, J., Ferns, J., & Morrison, J. (2004). Meeting the unmet need for depression services with psycho-educational self-confidence workshops: preliminary report. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 185(6), 511-515.
Derrick, J. L., Gabriel, S., & Hugenberg, K. (2009). Social surrogacy: How favored television programs provide the experience of belonging. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(2), 352-362.
Ernst, J. M., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2000). Lonely hearts: Psychological perspectives on loneliness. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 8(1), 1-22.
Forman, E. M., Herbert, J. D., Moitra, E., Yeomans, P. D., & Geller, P. A. (2007). A randomized controlled effectiveness trial of acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive therapy for anxiety and depression. Behavior modification, 31(6), 772-799.
Fradkin, C., Weschenfelder, G. V., & Yunes, M. A. M. (2015). Shared adversities of children and comic superheroes as resources for promoting resilience: comic superheroes are an untapped resource for empowering vulnerable children. Child abuse and neglect, 51, 407-415.
Hsu, C. T., Conrad, M., & Jacobs, A. M. (2014). Fiction feelings in Harry Potter: Haemodynamic response in the mid-cingulate cortex correlates with immersive reading experience. Neuroreport, 25(17), 1356-1361. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0000000000000272
Karniol, R., Galili, L., Shtilerman, D., Naim, R., Stern, K., Manjoch, H., & Silverman, R. (2011). Why superman can wait: Cognitive self-transformation in the delay of gratification paradigm. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 40(2), 307-317. doi:10.1080/15374416.2011.546040
Kearney, D. J., Malte, C. A., McManus, C., Martinez, M. E., Felleman, B., & Simpson, T. L. (2013). Loving‐kindness meditation for posttraumatic stress disorder: A pilot study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 26(4), 426-434.
Kistler, A. (2013). Doctor Who: A History. Guilford: Lyons.
Lee, R. M., Draper, M., & Lee, S. (2001). Social connectedness, dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors, and psychological distress: Testing a mediator model. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48(3), 310.
Nelson, L. D., & Norton, M. I. (2005). From student to superhero: Situational primes shape future helping. Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(4), 423-430. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2004.08.003
Nylund, D. (2007). Reading Harry Potter: Popular Culture , Queer theory and the fashioning of youth identity. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 26(2), 13–24.
Pommier, E. A. (2010). The compassionate scale. Unpublished PhD thesis). USA: The University of Texas at Austin.
Resick, P. A., Nishith, P., Weaver, T. L., Astin, M. C., & Feuer, C. A. (2006). Cognitive processing therapy: Veteran/military version. Clinical Psychology, 74, 898-907.
Rubin, K. H., & Burgess, K. B. (2001). Social withdrawal and anxiety. The developmental psychopathology of anxiety, 407-434.
Rubin, L., & Livesay, H. (2006). Look, up in the sky! Using superheroes in play therapy. International Journal of Play Therapy, 15(1), 117–133. doi:10.1037/h0088911
Schlozman, S. C. (2000). Vampires and Those Who Slay Them Using the Television Program Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Adolescent Therapy and Psychodynamic Education. Academic Psychiatry, 24(1), 49–54.
Uvnas-Moberg, K., & Petersson, M. (2005). Oxytocin, a mediator of anti-stress, well-being, social interaction, growth and healing. Zeitschrift für Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie, 51(1), 57-80.
Vezzali, L., Stathi, S., Giovannini, D., Capozza, D., & Trifiletti, E. (2014). The greatest magic of Harry Potter: Reducing prejudice. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, doi:10.1111/jasp.12279
Vowles, K. E., & McCracken, L. M. (2008). Acceptance and values-based action in chronic pain: a study of treatment effectiveness and process. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 76(3), 397.
Wansink, B., Shimizu, M., & Camps, G. (2012). What would Batman eat?: priming children to make healthier fast food choices. Pediatric obesity, 7(2), 121–3. doi:10.1111/j.2047-6310.2011.00003.x
