WORDS AND IMAGES : A Freudian New Year : A Ventura author has a book for those looking to get acquainted with their id, ego and superego.

At the New Year we resolve. Oh how we resolve--to eliminate or cut down on all the things that give us pleasure such as eating, drinking, making merry. We will give up slothful habits. We will fling our bodies out at dawn for aerobic walks. The pantry will be stocked with healthful foods. The desk at which we write will be organized. We will look inward and modify destructive behavior.

All well and good, but aren’t you tired of books exhorting us to find the child within, to quit being an enabler, and to demand explanations for every emotional quirk exhibited by family, friends and ourselves? Well, if you still insist on doing the New Year thing and wish to get acquainted with your id, ego and super-ego, check out “Sigmund Says: A Lighter Look at Freud through his Id, Ego and Super-ego” by Ventura author/publisher/psychotherapist Monte Elchoness. The book illustrates with cartoons and very simple language Freud’s theories on personality and behavior. Share it with the young folk in your life.

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The Ojai Film Society winter screenings begin at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Ojai Playhouse, with “Where Angels Fear to Tread,” based on E. M. Forster’s novel about a middle-aged English widow and her affair with a young Italian rake. Great roles for women in this movie, which stars Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter and Judy Davis.

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Learning Tree University is offering a number of writing classes at the Thousand Oaks campus, 1408 Thousand Oaks Blvd. Four are eight-week evening courses: Writing Your First Novel, begins Monday, Jan. 11; Introduction to Creative Writing, begins Wednesday, Jan. 13; Writing for Children and Young Adults, begins Wednesday, Jan. 13; Elements of Writing, begins Thursday, Jan. 14, and The Five P’s of the Well-Crafted Story is a one-day seminar at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 23. For details on these and other writing classes, call 497-2292.