Creativity and Cure?

An artist-painter client of mine recently posed an old question: “Will psychotherapy cause me to become less creative, to lose the little bit of creativity which lurks in my soul?”

This question has been raised time and again throughout the history of psychotherapy (documented incidents and formal complaints appear in print at least as early as 1925). The reason this issue exists stems from a widely held but flawed perception of how creativity functions. We have been culturally conditioned to believe that, as conflict enhances artistic work (novels, paintings, films, operas, plays, etc.), one must also experience constant conflict and torment in order to enhance one’s own artistic prowess. Control or eradicate an artist’s neuroses, and he or she will lose the creative drive that formerly produced celebrated and original results.

What I’ve just stated above is common thinking on the matter. In practice, however, it’s most often the case that learning to manage one’s problems through psychotherapy will actually lead to discovering entirely new creative levels.

Psychoanalyst Otto Rank was the first to view therapy as a tool for empowering patients to think, feel, and live in the present creatively. He attributed patterns of self-destruction (“neurosis”) to what he deemed inherent failures of creativity.

In his book Art and Artist (1932/1989, p. 70), Rank described the learning process in therapy as “stepping out of a frame” (today we would call it “thinking outside the box”), allowing the participants to experiment and leave behind prevailing – read, restricting – ideologies. This process is, as Rank saw it, “analogous to the work of artists as they struggle to give birth to fresh ways of seeing the world.”

By contrast, Sigmund Freud saw creativity as a retreat from sexuality. Psychotherapy/analysis that approaches creativity in this way, as a neurotic “symptom,” can very well inhibit one’s aptitude for artistic expression (and it is from this approach that many people draw the conclusion that psychotherapy will cause a loss of creative inspiration).

More recently, spiritualist Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61, has said, “Any mind activity is much more likely to be beneficial and creative if it’s preceded by presence and stillness.” In Tolle’s message I hear that our critical, judge-like voices interfere with our ability to reach presence and stillness. In most “good enough” psychotherapy, therapist and client explore/discuss/examine/confront the saboteurs which curtail and hinder the client’s progress in achieving his or her goals whether the client yearns to become an artist or not.

In my experience (both with myself and with patients), I’ve found that knowing oneself better does in fact enhance the creative process.  A primary goal of therapy is to diminish defenses and allow access to the unconscious where our imagination dwells, the bottomless ocean of innovation.

In my first year of psychiatric residency on the inpatient ward, I briefly treated a young woman (not an artist), who during her throes of manic psychosis had speech that resounded like poetry, a rapid-fire string of words that rhymed in ‘clang’ associations but ultimately proved meaningless.

“She could be a poet,” I said to the chief psychiatrist. He was clearly distressed by my reaction.

“You’re over-identifying with the patient,” he said disparagingly.

 I admit that in my naïve state I held out hope her psychosis would resolve and her free associations would metamorphose into great literature, something like the works of brilliant poet Dylan Thomas or perhaps the novelist James Joyce, whose stream of consciousness writing broke a literary barrier in his masterpiece Ulysses.

Where does the distinction lie, the delicate tightrope of balance? Some artists (writers especially) seem prone to drink to dissolve defenses which block access to the well of creativity, the unconscious. The need for drugs and/or alcohol can lead to serious health problems and an early demise as in the case of Dylan Thomas and more recently the prolific polemicist-writer, Christopher Hitchens (author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton, The Trial of Henry Kissinger. I wonder if a course of therapy could have helped them control their alcoholism, to reach the powers of the unconscious without the depressant’s physically and mentally debilitating crutch.

Happily, after several weeks of treatment on the ward with medication and talk therapy, my patient’s psychosis did resolve. She did not, however, become a literary genius.

Many artists today do find psychotherapy helpful in unlocking their creative abilities. Look at Woody Allen. An award-winning screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and jazz clarinetist whose career spans over half a century, Allen has spent nearly as many years undergoing psychoanalysis. His biographer John Baxter writes that Allen “obviously found analysis stimulating, even exciting,” and indeed many of his films are filled with references to psychology and the process of analysis itself. It certainly did not hamper his creativity.

Through reading, discussions, friendship, your own life, what has been your own understanding of psychotherapy and its effect on creativity?

Have drugs or alcohol had an effect on your creative powers? 

Conclusion: Psychotherapy/psychoanalysis has the potential to enhance creativity by diminishing defenses and allowing access to the unconscious. As Otto Rank described, viewing analysis as a learning process allows us the freedom to indulge our imaginations, thus “giving birth” to fresh ways of seeing the world. It is through this sort of exploratory and encouraging therapy that our mental and emotional selves will be able to grow.

If our inner voices are critical and judgmental, we’re unlikely to  experience peace of mind or feel free to explore our uniqueness. “Good enough” psychotherapy aims to quiet these critical voices and when successful, benefits us and increases our creativity in whatever direction we pursue.

Dear Reader: I welcome your comments. (jsimon145@gmail.com)