My Animal Alphabet: Paintings and Poems

by Linda Mia Turkel
Published by MindMend Publishing, an imprint of the ORI Academic Press
ISBN: 9780984870097 (soft)

Note from the author: There are two things that young children are especially drawn to ─ animals and the alphabet. So I thought I would combine them into a series that would reinforce the alphabet (that they so early learn) and animals (that they are inherently drawn to). Although these animals are recognizable many are somewhat impressionistic. I was careful to not include any “made up” animals such as “unicorn.” The alphabet, I felt, was a good structure to fit the animals into ─ since this combination of “alphabet” and “animal” can be essential for the child’s development with respect to learning (and even comfort) as they experience the world. Rhyming is a very inviting way to remember things, so I wrote a rhyming poem for each animal.

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