Dr. Loehmann Character Analysis

Dr. Loehmann is a psychiatrist to whom Andy refers Jude following Jude’s suicide attempt. Despite his friends’ protests, Jude initially refuses to see Dr. Loehmann. Following a major fight with Willem over Jude’s continued self-harm, Jude finally starts to see Dr. Loehmann, but he refuses to answer any of Dr. Loehmann’s questions or else skips their sessions entirely. Following Willem’s death, Jude falls into a deep depression and nearly starves himself to death. As a result, his friends hold an intervention, commit him to a hospital, and only release him on the condition that he start to take care of himself and agree to see Dr. Loehmann. Jude agrees, though he continues to avoid discussing his past with the psychiatrist. At the very end of the novel, Jude seems to have a breakthrough and shows signs that he will begin to take his sessions with Loehmann seriously. However, this optimism is short-lived, as the next (and final) section of the book reveals that Jude dies by suicide not long after this final session.