Anatomia depresji w powieści Niekończąca się historia Michaela Endego

Abstract

In only two generations, depression has become the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder among teenagers. Youth depression is one of the threads in the novel The Neverending Story (1979) by Michael Ende. The paper analyzes the mechanisms of action of the protagonist, Bastian Baltazar Buks, specifically the ten-year-old’s behavior after the death of his mother, from the point of view of developmental and clinical psychology. His traumatic experience and misunderstanding with his emotionally isolated father resulted in the boy’s intuitive search for a way out of the overwhelming emptiness and desperate attempts to function in a brand new reality.