Fiona Gee, Content Team Contributor

While we can all agree that the less said the better about JK Rowling’s recent antics, the Boggart characters in the Harry Potter books have always stuck in my mind as a truly accurateand useful metaphor for anxiety which describe it in a way I have never seen elsewhere. 

For the uninitiated, Boggarts are first introduced in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azbakan:

‘ ‘So the first question we must ask ourselves is, what is a Boggart?’

Hermione put up her hand.

‘It’s a shape shifter’, she said. ‘It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most’.

‘Couldn’t have put it better myself’, said Professor Lupin, and Hermione glowed. ‘So the Boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a Boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.’’

And so, to anxiety – or what I would describe as each of our own inner Boggarts, able to shape shift and appear in a variety of circumstances and permeate events throughout our lives – ranging from job interviews, to social situations, to travelling. In a world where we can’t just use the spell ‘Riddikulus’ and turn the Boggart’s form into something funny (as Harry and his friends did), how then does one deal with its shape shiftingability?

One thing I have learned is that, because of its ability to shape shift, it’s often unrealistic to think that there is just one solution to anxiety. While there are obviously some over-arching therapies and treatments that can help in a general sense, actually, realising that different situations might require different approaches can often be key to improvement. 

Take flying, for example – this is something that a lot of people feel anxious about (whether you suffer from anxiety more generally or not). I did not fly for the first time until I was an adult and by that time, I was certainly anxious about the experience such that I would have the typical sweating palms for take off and landing (and during any bout of turbulence) and would generally spend the entire time jumpy as hell, while urging time to move faster until we were back on the ground. 

However, in recent years, I’ve seen a marked improvement in that to the point that last time, there were no sweating palms and for probably one of the first times in my life, the calm voice of logic was louder than my flight Boggart was. What’s my secret? Unfortunately this was probably down to nothing more than the fact I have flown more frequently in the past couple of years – which has in turn started to normalise the experience and left me feeling less anxious about it. 

There is obviously a school of thought that effectively reproducing that approach in everyday life will help with all types of anxiety (ie by pushing yourself into situations that cause you anxiety, you will eventually become less anxious about them). In some cases this might work. The ultimate aim for many of us is to not miss out on experiences because of our anxiety. However, my own view is that that is unlikely to assist every form of anxiety – and learning to be ok with that is a big step forward. 

Learning to understand that the Boggart is continually shape shifting and saying actually, sometimes it’s ok to remove myself from this environment, or to look at alternative jobs if the one I am in is causing me stress, or to not be friends with this person if they cause me stress  – or whatever it is – is surprisingly liberating and effective. It is possible that one of those things was the main source of anxiety in the first place and that as a result, anxiety levels then generally become more manageable. 

Of course, it’s unlikely to disperse the Boggart completely, because that’s not how anxiety works – but hey – it might just mean there is one less shape for him to shift into…