Literature and the Therapeutic Imagination. Adoption, Charles Dickens and Psychoanalysis

This paper begins with the idea that English literature contains many explorations of the psychological processes of adoption. Although adoption is an intriguing narrative device, it could be argued that psychoanalysis adds further understanding of the deeper reasons for this. There is a long tradition of psychoanalysis being interested in literature and the paper traces the roots of this from Freud to more recent writers. A good exemplar of literature exploring adoption is found in many of the works of Charles Dickens such as David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist. Although Bleak House is often regarded as being mainly about a dysfunctional legal system, the paper argues that it also contains a perceptive account of a child in the adoption process. Themes of ‘not knowing’, searching and re-unification, identity and the use of transitional objects are all present in this novel. Finally, the paper suggests that any clinicians working with the inner world could be enriched by paying close attention to the novelist’s imaginative exploration of the adoption process. This point is made through the consideration of the work of Jeremy Holmes. The therapeutic imagination could be enhanced by bringing the study of literature into the training and development of psychotherapists.