"[Bachelard] is neither a self-confessed and tortured atheist like Satre, nor, like Chardin, a heretic combining a belief in God with a proficiency in modern science. But, within the French context, he is almost as important as they are because he has a pseudo-religious force, without taking a stand on religion. To define him as briefly as possible – he is a philosopher, with a professional training in the sciences, who devoted most of the second phase of his career to promoting that aspect of human nature which often seems most inimical to science: the poetic imagination ..." – J.G. Weightman, The New York Times Review of Books

The only Freudian to have been originally trained in folklore and the first psychoanalytic anthropologist to carry out fieldwork, Gza Rcheim (1891-1953) contributed substantially to the worldwide study of cultures. Combining a global perspective with encyclopedic knowledge of ethnographic sources, this Hungarian analyst demonstrates the validity of Freudian theory in both Western and non-Western settings. These seventeen essays, written between 1922 and 1953, are among Rcheim's most significant published writings and are collected here for the first time to introduce a new generation of readers to his unique interpretations of myths, folktales, and legends. From Australian aboriginal mythology to Native American trickster tales, from the Grimm folktale canon to Hungarian folk belief, Rcheim explores a wide range of issues, such as the relationship of dreams to folklore and the primacy of infantile conditioning in the formation of adult fantasy. An introduction by folklorist Alan Dundes describes Rcheim's career, and each essay is prefaced by a brief consideration of its intellectual and bibliographical context.

At the heart of Origami Bridges is the delicate relationship of trust between analyst and patient, a relationship that grows out of the emotional give-and-take of the psychoanalytic process. In this collection, Diane Ackerman, with astonishing candor, lays bare her desires, anger, jealousy, fears, and anxiety, as she probes not only her present emotional landscape but also her past. And what gradually rises to the surface is an understanding of how the poet uses verse to purge her demons, express her delight, or confess secret longing, and through this process come to a better understanding of the self.

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.