Catching Ghosts

Abstract

There are few psychoanalytically informed, first-person commentaries on the creative process of writing fiction. In this paper, the author, a psychoanalyst with a parallel career as a children’s book writer, explores his associations, autobiographical details, and related theoretical constructs as they relate to the writing of one of his published picture book texts. Lastly, he questions whether a piece of fiction not only illustrates the writer’s current and past history, but also points to the writer’s future psychological potentialities.

• Writing
• creative process
• Ghost Catcher
• self-reflection
• inspiration
• literature
• visual imagery
• narrative
• preconscious
• ghosts
• primary process
• regression
• loneliness