Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made on: The Autobiography and Journals of Helen M. Luke

Inviting readers to share a journey that crossed many thresholds to what Jungian psychology calls individuation, Jungian analyst Helen M. Luke wrote her concise, probing and often self-critical autobiography at age 70. This work moves from a rather straightforward account of Luke's personal history (she attended Oxford, married a civil servant in 1929, adopted several children, then later parted ways with her husband as she embarked on her psychoanalytic career, which led her to the U.S. in 1949) to a veritable barrage of dreams in the journals she wrote before her death at age 90 in 1995. Important or repeated dreams punctuate the autobiography and thread together the journals. The volume reaches its climax in Luke's poignant observations about aging, her conclusion that psychology must eventually cede to the power of archetypal narratives (which Luke calls ""Story"") and that ""to trace the pattern of any person's `big' dreams from childhood to old age, together with the events that accompanied them, can be to tell a Story."" Some readers may find Luke's life and its telling excessively self-absorbed, almost dispassionately disconnected from the world she inhabited and the changes her century saw. Others will appreciate one woman's courage in following her dreams--and her Dream. 8 b&w photos. (Jan.)