They Might Be Giants: The Creative Interplay of Literature and Psychology

Abstract

In the sometimes seemingly quixotic quest to overcome the loneliness of our human condition, a main driver of discovery is the interplay of literature and psychology, the core dynamic fueling the human imagination from the picaresque journeys of Cervantes to the royal road that Freud traveled down in his interpretation of dreams. They might be Giants. In her posthumously published paper on loneliness, Dr. Fromm-Reichmann explores the creative interplay between literature and psychology, which stimulates our understanding as readers and our receptivity as an audience, while in turn, inspiring creative artists like Fellini, who began his mythical journey in La Strada, found his guiding ideals in Jungian analysis and who completed the realization of his collective vision in 8 ½.