It's time to take a journey through the Hundred Acre Woods with our favorite bear, Winnie the Pooh.
Each Character Represents a Different Mental Disorder[]
A tongue-in-cheek report by the Canadian Medical Association sparked a widely-shared theory that each Winnie the Pooh character symbolizes a certain mental disorder. The theory has been around since at least 2000, when the BBC released an article here. The following is a run-down of each disorder that the characters supposedly have.
Winnie the Pooh: Impulsive eating disorder. His near-obsession with honey indicates an eating disorder. His habit of repetitive counting shows evidence of obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD.
Piglet: Generalized anxiety disorder. Piglet is in a perpetual state of worry and can often be heard saying "Oh, dear." He has also developed an ear twitch, common in overly anxious individuals.
Eeyore: Major depressive disorder. He always has a bleak outlook on life, and never feels any positive emotions like happiness and excitement.
Rabbit: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Rabbit is very orderly and obsessive, mostly with regard to his garden.
Owl: Dyslexia and narcissistic personality disorder. While he is exceptionally bright, it is frequently shown that Owl has trouble reading. An example would be in Pooh’s Grand Adventure when he mistakes the word school for "skull." Owl is also theorized to have narcissism, an inflated sense of self-importance, due to his belief that he is wiser than the others.
Tigger: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder. Tigger is always seen bouncing and can never stay in one place for a long period of time. Tigger may also have Bipolar disorder, as he tends to rapidly switch moods.
Kanga: Social anxiety disorder. She is very overprotective of her son, and she would never let her son make his own decisions because of her overprotectiveness.
Roo: Autism spectrum disorder. He lacks awareness of danger and has a strange attachment to sitting in his mother's pouch.
Christopher Robin: Schizophrenia. It is believed that all of the talking animal characters above are manifested depending on Christopher's mood.
It should be noted that this theory, along with similar ones like the SpongeBob seven sins theory, has been debunked (see this Snopes article for more information). That doesn't deter fans from finding new evidence to support it.
Mental Disorders of the Winnie the Pooh Characters
