When does analysis become over-analysis or, who’s the narcissist here?

An interesting article by Randy Dotinga appearing in the 5-24-07 issue of Wired called Anakin Skywalker: Borderline Personality, Bipolar or Narcissist?A team of psychiatrists has done a study analyzing Anakin Skywalker . According to Dr. Eric Bui in Toulouse, France, a co-author of the study, they have concluded that Anakin is suffering from a disorder. First of all, I think it’s interesting that the diagnosis is done within the confines of the DSM diagnostic manual rather than integrate anything about the character/plot dynamics or, if you want to assume it’s all real, in the context of his world. Major ethical faux pas to analyze someone without cultural consideration. (I don’t know if that violates a psychiatrist’s medical code of ethics, but it’s definitely a no-no in the eyes of the APA.)

From the article:
“Why do we care about the psychoanalysis of a Star Wars villain? Because the diagnosis helps explain why teenagers — no strangers to borderline personalities — find Skywalker so appealing, said study co-author Rachel Rodgers, a psychologist in Toulouse. They may like him, she said, “because he’s very similar to them.”

The authors fail to normalize Anakin relative to his developmental stage in the context of his world; instead they stigmatize Anakin with a psychological disorder. How very adult of them. I think teenagers like him because he is similar, but as an archetype for the teenage experience. He consumed by the conflicts and pressures in his life –conflicted by good and evil and loyalties, and embroiled in a war (high school?) and not always handling it perfectly. All of that sounds a lot like being a teenager to me.