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For many years, ancient Jewish myth warned against the study of Kabbalah’s mystical writings until one had attained the age of 40. It was thought that such study was inherently dangerous, even life threatening, for the young. In fact, an illustrative Talmudic story is told of 4 rabbis who, through study of Kabbalah, enter the sacred mystical realm of Pardes. One rabbi died immediately upon entering, one became crazy, one became an apostate and left the religion altogether, and only one, the vaunted Rabbi Akiba, survived intact.
In the same vein, for years, exposure to psychoanalytic ideas was thought by the psychoanalytic establishment to be dangerous for young people. Following that mode of thought, psychoanalytic candidates in the early realm of their training were prohibited from participation in advanced conferences and were barred from listening to some case material. Certainly, at that time, it was unthinkable that psychoanalytic ideas could, or even should, be taught at the undergraduate level.
Marcia Dobson and John Riker, both professors at Colorado College, turned that thinking on its head. With uncommon courage they entered psychoanalytic Pardes, exposed the young ones in their charge to notions about unconscious motivation and more, and came out not only unscathed, but celebrated for their pedagogical “bravery” and innovation.
This issue of PI is a celebration of their students and of what John and Marcia have accomplished.
Allen Siegel, M.D.
Associate Editor, Psychoanalytic Inquiry
Call us crazy. At a time when the world and academia seemed to have turned against psychoanalysis, we so fully believed in its fundamental presuppositions that we embarked on a journey to explore astonishing new ways to bring psychoanalysis into the hallowed halls of undergraduate education. The we are Marcia Dobson, a classicist, and John Riker, a philosopher—both professors at Colorado College and married to one another for four decades. Marcia is a daughter of one of the great w