The Therapy Zone

A Psychiatric Report On Number Six

      He is still there, even after all these past 45 years, he is still there. One of the most complete examples of duel identity in the history of medical science. Meaning that half the time the Prisoner was Number 6 and the other half he was his double the Number 1. And in the end Number 6 got the upper hand in the control room of the rocket during Fall Out.

   One might ask how Number 6 could be in two places at the one time. Well apart from that confrontation between Number 6 and Number 1, we only ever see Number 6. However there is one time towards the end of ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ when Number 6 is in the company of No.2, who actually reports a breakdown in control to No.1, in the presence of Number 6, which can be explained by a previously recorded message. There was of course Curtis-Number 12, but then he was a look-a-like who in the end came to a very bad end in ‘The Schizoid Man.’ So how to explain that most singular confrontation between 6 and 1? Well to be perfectly honest I can't, well save for the possibility that the man was haunting himself, a doppelganger maybe. After all we all of us have a double somewhere.

   Yes I know what McGoohan said, that Number 6 is the alter ego of Number 1 who he was trying to beat. But that cannot explain the physical confrontation between the two in that control room during ‘Fall Out.’ I know what the majority of readers might say, that it was an allegorical meeting between the two. Well allegorical or not, the meeting seemed pretty physical to me, did it not you?

   If the Prisoner is all in the mind, then Number 6 appears to have an anguish pattern, as observed by the doctor-Number 14 in her laboratory in ‘A B & C.’ Over and over again in the Prisoners sub-conscious he plays out the act of his resignation, over and over again on the large screen, once his thoughts had been turned into pictures. It is probably in this case, that the Prisoner’s act of having resigned from his position is now causing him to suffer some agonizing physical or mental distress. And in that he has projected himself as being this all consuming power who is Number 1, his alter ego, who he is trying to beat. Ah but now I have fallen in line with McGoohan's theory, which I suppose there is no getting away from. But the allegorical leaves no room for the physical nature of the man. For the Prisoner known as Number 6 is physical, earthy and of the flesh as any man alive today.

BCNU