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

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 Jelliffes handwritten notes from her analytic sessions, provide an unusual and virtually unprecedented access to one womans dream life and to the private process of psychoanalysis and its exploration of the unconscious.

Through Dodges dreams-considered together with Jelliffes notes, annotations drawn from her memoirs and unpublished writings, and correspondence between Dodge and Jelliffe during the course of her treatment-the reader becomes immersed in the workings of Dodges heart and mind, as well as the larger cultural embrace of psychoanalysis and its world-shattering views. Jelliffes 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 Dodges 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.