The Dreams of Mabel Dodge: Diary of an Analysis with Smith Ely Jelliffe

Description

In 1916, salon host Mabel Dodge entered psychoanalysis with Smith Ely Jelliffe in New York, recording 142 dreams during her six-month treatment. Her dreams, as well as Jelliffe’s handwritten notes from her analytic sessions, provide an unusual and virtually unprecedented access to one woman’s dream life and to the private process of psychoanalysis and its exploration of the unconscious. Through Dodge’s dreams—considered together with Jelliffe’s notes, annotations drawn from her memoirs and unpublished writings, and correspondence between Dodge and Jelliffe during the course of her treatment—the reader becomes immersed in the workings of Dodge’s heart and mind, as well as the larger cultural embrace of psychoanalysis and its world-shattering views. Jelliffe’s notes provide a rare glimpse into the process of dream analysis in an early psychoanalytic treatment, illuminating how he and Dodge often embarked upon an examination of each element of the dream as they explored associations to such details as color and personalities from her childhood. The dreams, with their extensive annotations, provide compelling and original material that deepens knowledge about the early practice of psychoanalysis in the United States, this period in cultural history, and Dodge’s own intricately examined life. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in clinical practice, as well as scholars of the history of psychoanalysis and students of dreams. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgments Series editor’s foreword Prelude Author’s preface List of abbreviations 1 Mabel Dodge Childhood, marriages, and salons Mabel Dodge’s first contact with Smith Ely Jelliffe 2 Smith Ely Jelliffe Childhood Education and first love Beginning medical practice and turn to neurology and psychiatry Conversion to psychoanalysis Jelliffe’s patients Psychoanalytic Review “Technique of Psychoanalysis” papers Diseases of the Nervous System 3 Mabel Dodge in psychoanalysis with Smith Ely Jelliffe Jelliffe’s “Technique” papers and Dodge’s analysis Jelliffe’s approach to psychoanalysis and dream interpretation, as presented in Diseases of the Nervous System Mabel Dodge in analysis with Jelliffe Mabel Dodge on dream interpretation The Dreams of Mabel Dodge 4 Cast of characters 5 The Dreams of Mabel Dodge A note on how to approach the dreams Appendices Appendix A: Mabel Dodge, “Mabel Dodge Writes About the Unconscious”: The New York Journal, 1917 (Excerpted) Appendix B: Mabel Dodge, “A Game of Cards—Hearts” Psychoanalytic Review, 1918 (vol. 5, pp. 442–444): Reprinted with the permission of Guilford Press References Index