Windmills of the Mind: Cervantes, Jung, Freud & Don Quixote
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Windmills of the Mind: Cervantes, Jung, Freud & Don Quixote
Spain, The La Mancha Region: Madrid, Almagro, Toledo
October 22-28, 2026
25 Continuing Education Credits
A Psychoanalytic Immersion in the Landscape of Don Quixote
Windmills of the Mind is more than a seminar. It is a physical, intellectual, and imaginative immersion into the terrain of the human psyche. To bring this magnificent story to life, we take you into its otherworldly landscape in the heart of Spain.
By following the literal and symbolic path of Don Quixote, the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, we explore the fragile boundary between vision and delusion, the struggle for individuation, and the profound psychological insights that would later emerge in the work of Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung. While our journey is deeply rooted in Jungian thought, we must also acknowledge the "Cervantean" foundations of psychoanalysis itself.
It is a little-known but vital historical fact that, long before psychoanalysis had a name, Cervantes was mapping the inner world. Sigmund Freud was passionately devoted to Cervantes from a young age. As a teenager, he taught himself Spanish for the sole purpose of reading Don Quixote in its original language. He even carried out a private correspondence with his close friend Eduard Silberstein, in which the two addressed each other as Berganza and Cipión, the philosophical dogs from Cervantes’ The Dialogue of the Dogs.
For Freud, Cervantes was not merely a novelist, but a precursor to the exploration of the mind. In Don Quixote’s grand delusions and Sancho Panza’s grounded pragmatism, Freud perceived the dynamic tension between psychic forces that would later become central to psychoanalytic thought.
Throughout the journey, we examine how Cervantes’ narrative dialogues, and his compassionate portrayal of madness, anticipated the “talking cure” and helped shape Freud’s earliest theories of psychoanalysis including the dialogue between analyst and analysand.
Given its length and complexity, Don Quixote can feel, quite literally, like an impossible dream to read in its entirety. For our special Autumn 2026 offering, we distill the novel to its psychological essence, allowing us to observe what Jung called the process of Individuation. Through selected episodes, guided discussion, and embodied exploration, we trace the unfolding journey of becoming, through the very terrain that shaped Cervantes’ imagination.
While generally regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, modern European novels (and perhaps the first), some scholars and critics with great conviction define it as a parody of chivalry. Together, we will explore and decide for ourselves whether longstanding social values of idealism, honor, and loyalty have had their time, or are perhaps in need of revitalization. How crazy is Don Quixote? Are we a bit envious of the purpose and meaning he embodies?
Through visits to sites intimately associated with Don Quixote’s quest, and through multiple modes of expressive and reflective practice, we explore the intertwined journeys of:
Alonso Quijano, the man who becomes Don Quixote
Sancho Panza, his faithful companion and grounding mirror
As we trace their paths, you are invited to attend to your own dreams, daydreams, and inner narratives, beginning the work Jung described as discovering one’s Personal Myth. This inquiry, being personal, psychological, and deeply human, becomes one of the central tasks of our time together.
With Mind Body Passport, your travels become a powerful platform for personal growth and self-discovery. Our carefully curated itinerary combines immersive experiences with thought-provoking seminars supporting learning and exploration!
“I suspected that myth had a meaning which I was sure to miss if I lived outside it in the haze of my own speculations. I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: ‘What is the myth you are living?’ I found no answer… and had to admit that I was not living with a myth, or even in a myth, but rather in an uncertain cloud of theoretical possibilities which I was beginning to regard with increasing distrust. I did not know that I was living a myth, and even if I had known it, I would not have known what sort of myth was ordering my life without my knowledge. So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know ‘my’ myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks.”
– C.G. Jung, Collected Works V”
Spain, The La Mancha Region: Madrid, Almagro, Toledo
October 22-28, 2026
25 Continuing Education Credits
A Psychoanalytic Immersion in the Landscape of Don Quixote
Windmills of the Mind is more than a seminar. It is a physical, intellectual, and imaginative immersion into the terrain of the human psyche. To bring this magnificent story to life, we take you into its otherworldly landscape in the heart of Spain.
By following the literal and symbolic path of Don Quixote, the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, we explore the fragile boundary between vision and delusion, the struggle for individuation, and the profound psychological insights that would later emerge in the work of Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung. While our journey is deeply rooted in Jungian thought, we must also acknowledge the "Cervantean" foundations of psychoanalysis itself.
It is a little-known but vital historical fact that, long before psychoanalysis had a name, Cervantes was mapping the inner world. Sigmund Freud was passionately devoted to Cervantes from a young age. As a teenager, he taught himself Spanish for the sole purpose of reading Don Quixote in its original language. He even carried out a private correspondence with his close friend Eduard Silberstein, in which the two addressed each other as Berganza and Cipión, the philosophical dogs from Cervantes’ The Dialogue of the Dogs.
For Freud, Cervantes was not merely a novelist, but a precursor to the exploration of the mind. In Don Quixote’s grand delusions and Sancho Panza’s grounded pragmatism, Freud perceived the dynamic tension between psychic forces that would later become central to psychoanalytic thought.
Throughout the journey, we examine how Cervantes’ narrative dialogues, and his compassionate portrayal of madness, anticipated the “talking cure” and helped shape Freud’s earliest theories of psychoanalysis including the dialogue between analyst and analysand.
Given its length and complexity, Don Quixote can feel, quite literally, like an impossible dream to read in its entirety. For our special Autumn 2026 offering, we distill the novel to its psychological essence, allowing us to observe what Jung called the process of Individuation. Through selected episodes, guided discussion, and embodied exploration, we trace the unfolding journey of becoming, through the very terrain that shaped Cervantes’ imagination.
While generally regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, modern European novels (and perhaps the first), some scholars and critics with great conviction define it as a parody of chivalry. Together, we will explore and decide for ourselves whether longstanding social values of idealism, honor, and loyalty have had their time, or are perhaps in need of revitalization. How crazy is Don Quixote? Are we a bit envious of the purpose and meaning he embodies?
Through visits to sites intimately associated with Don Quixote’s quest, and through multiple modes of expressive and reflective practice, we explore the intertwined journeys of:
Alonso Quijano, the man who becomes Don Quixote
Sancho Panza, his faithful companion and grounding mirror
As we trace their paths, you are invited to attend to your own dreams, daydreams, and inner narratives, beginning the work Jung described as discovering one’s Personal Myth. This inquiry, being personal, psychological, and deeply human, becomes one of the central tasks of our time together.
With Mind Body Passport, your travels become a powerful platform for personal growth and self-discovery. Our carefully curated itinerary combines immersive experiences with thought-provoking seminars supporting learning and exploration!
“I suspected that myth had a meaning which I was sure to miss if I lived outside it in the haze of my own speculations. I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: ‘What is the myth you are living?’ I found no answer… and had to admit that I was not living with a myth, or even in a myth, but rather in an uncertain cloud of theoretical possibilities which I was beginning to regard with increasing distrust. I did not know that I was living a myth, and even if I had known it, I would not have known what sort of myth was ordering my life without my knowledge. So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know ‘my’ myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks.”
– C.G. Jung, Collected Works V”
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Spain, Madrid, Spain
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Host or PublisherMind Body Passport
