In So Many Words

This film documents the life of Dr. Lucy Daniels — her struggles with anorexia nervosa, the trauma of the brutal treatment methods in the 1950s, and the saving grace of her creative work and psychoanalysis. In telling the story of Daniel’s life, this experimental documentary takes the viewer on an intense psychic journey. The first of its kind, it weaves together “relational” recreations, animated dream sequences, constructed worlds, and intimate interviews to tell a story of survival and creativity filtered through the eyes of subject and filmmaker. Daniels joins Dr. Barbara D’Amato in an audience Q&A following the 69-minute screening. This 2013 film is directed and produced by Elisabeth Haviland James.

Lucy Daniels, PhD is a prolific writer, working in private practice and in her foundation to help other creative individuals overcome emotional conflicts, often through an analysis of their dreams. In 1956, less than a year after her release from a hospital, a novel she had written there, Caleb, My Son, became a best seller and won her a Guggenheim Fellowship in literature. Daniels went on to publish several other novels. In 1991, she was named a Distinguished Friend of Psychoanalysis by The American Psychoanalytic Association, in 1995, an Honorary Colleague of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, and in 2003 an honorary member of the North Carolina Psychoanalytic Society.