ABSTRACT
In his great novel Don Quixote, Cervantes describes the countless ways that his hero tries to impose his day-dreams onto the world around him. He is exposed to ridicule and to other cruelties justified by thinking of him as mad. The burning of his books in a parody of the inquisition draws attention to the tyranny that sane people can inflict on the mentally ill and eccentric.
Don Quixote attempts to recreate a Garden of Eden Illusion but is aware that his illusions are creations of his imagination. He sought fame but as he begins to face reality he is less determined to be admired and is more satisfied with being loved.
The novel raises important issues for the psychoanalyst such as the relationship between the ideal and the real, between phantasy and reality and between being loved and being admired. It warns of the danger that the therapist can inadvertently adopt a position that labels the patient as mad without recognising that this is experienced as a humiliation.
