The spontaneous imaginings of childhood have a unique fascination. They take various forms, including make-believe, the creation of imaginary companions, pretence and day-dreaming. One less common but delightful form of imagining is the spontaneous creation of an imaginary private world, which for a considerable period keeps recurring and thereby tends to become elaborated and systematized. Such paracosms, as the authors call them, vary widely, according to the age at which they begin, the time for which they continue, and the influence of such factors as gender and family. In this study David Cohen, film maker and psychologist, and Stephen MacKeith, retired psychiatrist, have gathered together and explored the material relating to over 60 examples of such private worlds. The result is a study of an imaginative activity that has been part of the childhood of such brilliant and creative minds as Friedrich Nietzsche, Anthony Trollope, Thomas de Quincey, C.S. Lewis and Robert Louis Stevenson. This book should be of interest to developmental and child psychologists, child psychiatrists, and teaching professionals.
My first piece was published in the Times of London about a holiday in a small village in southern France. I've written a lot of psychology non fiction and also work in films. I am currently doing a massive DVD based on a reading of the Bible - it took 78 hours - a church in London. And my son and I are translating a book on Sarkozy and Carla.
My next book out is about how Freud escaped Vienna and the 'good' Nazi who helped him.
