Harry’s Dream

by Suzanne T. Saldarini
Illustrations by Simeone, Lou
Psychoanalytic Thought for Youth Series
ISBN: 9781942431015 (soft)

Over one hundred years ago, Freud showed us that dreams are over-determined. Events from the previous day, on-going projects and interests, conversations, childhood memories and feelings attached to all of these come together to form our night-time dramas. The same could be said about any invention, including this short story for young children. Harry’s Dream began with a real night-mare, was shaped by conversations, by interests and by Harry’s memories. Finally, it was determined by the commitment at ORI Academic Press to connect psychoanalytic concepts to ordinary experience. Harry’s Dream is Suzanne Saldarini’s second book for children published by the ORI Academic Press. Her first book, About Dreams, was nominated for a prestigious 2013 Gradiva® Award from the National Association for Advancement of Psychoanalysis. Both books are included in Psychoanalytic Thought for Youth series. Harry’s Dream is brief, vivid and, hopefully, meaningful to anyone who cares for pre-school children.

Reviews

The Compulsion to Create is a superb account of distinguished female writers [Plath, Nin, the Brontæs, Dickinson, and Sitwell] from a psychoanalytic object relations perspective. The artists discussed often suffered tragic fates including suicide, fatal illness, lifelong withdrawal from people, or alienation from the world. At this current time in the American psychoanalytic dialogue, there is a tendency to idealize the creative process and to discuss it only in terms of ‘healthy narcissism.’ While presenting a sympathetic and respectful attitude toward the creative process, Kavaler-Adler nevertheless does not idealize it and is forthright in discussing the problems the artist may encounter.

— Jeffrey Seinfeld, Ph.D

This book can be highly recommended as an introduction to the clinical applications of current object relations theory from the perspective of both its dynamic and developmental viewpoints, as well as its application to the analysis of fine, enduring literature of female authors, and the unconscious mechanisms that underlie it. It is a rich and often moving account of how the capacity for attempts at self-repair find their expression in artistic endeavors that provide the artist with a personal medium for creative psychic survival, while contributing to the general enrichment of culture by means of such aesthetic experiences.

— Mark Wayne, C.S.W., B.C.D., American Journal of Psychoanalysis