ABSTRACT
In the early days of psychoanalysis in the United States during the 1910s, the movers and shakers of Greenwich Village in New York were willing and enthusiastic participants in this radical approach to understanding human behavior and emotions. As championed by Sigmund Freud in his groundbreaking writings such as The Interpretation of Dreams and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, the unconscious was a compelling force that these pioneers embraced in their struggle towards deeper knowledge. Among the most devoted practitioners of this new psychology in New York were A. A. Brill and Smith Ely Jelliffe. And among the most outspoken and literary of their patients was Mabel Dodge who seriously immersed herself in this new treatment, first with Jelliffe in January 1916 and six months later with Brill. She was an ardent popularizer of psychoanalysis through her weekly salons and Hearst newspaper columns, becoming a persuasive force who encouraged others to be analyzed.
