DIAGNOSIS: Hannibal Lecter & Will Graham from NBC’s Hannibal

Is Hannibal Lecter still a psychopath by season three, or something else entirely? And what is really wrong with Will Graham?

Hannibal (NBC, 2013 to 2015) follows the early relationship between psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal from Thomas Harris’s novels and The Silence of the Lambs, and FBI profiler Will Graham, a man haunted by his ability to empathize with serial killers.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy put both men on the couch: Lecter’s psychopathy, his psychology of cannibalism as love and art, and Will’s mix of empathy, encephalitis and complex trauma.

Covered in this episode:

• Hannibal the TV series, created by Bryan Fuller
• Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter and Hugh Dancy as Will Graham
• Gillian Anderson as Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier
• Dr. Alana Bloom, Mason Verger, Dr. Frederick Chilton and the Red Dragon
• Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs and the Thomas Harris books
• The stag, the score and the series’ visual language
• A BBC Culture take on why the gore matters, plus Hostel by comparison

Clinical concepts: psychopathy, Freud’s drives (sex and death), psychosexual dynamics, ego and shadow, the psychology of cannibalism, the messiah complex, cognitive vs affective empathy, autism spectrum myths, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, ruling out medical causes first, dissociation, complex trauma, trauma-informed care, social anxiety and blunted affect.

Corrections: Hannibal aired on NBC, not Netflix; it streamed on Netflix later. And Bedelia Du Maurier was created for the TV series; she isn’t in the films.

Related episodes:

• PSYCHOLOGY: The Alienist, Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans & Daniel Bruhl
• PSYCHOLOGY: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer & Henry Lee Lucas
• PSYCHOLOGY: Mental Illness in Horror, Joker, Hereditary & The Babadook
• DIAGNOSIS: Hannibal Lecter & Will Graham from NBC’s Hannibal

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Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

Until then... sleep safe. 😴
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