Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process.

Abstract

There is a legend which has almost universal acknowledgment and wide belief that artistic creation of many kinds has its genesis in neurosis. It is said that the artist has to keep his neurosis simmering in order to keep his creativity and productivity active. In this book, the three essays, which constitute the twenty-second series of the Porter Lectures of the University of Kansas, Kubie has prepared for the sensible layman or physician untrained as psychiatrist or psychoanalyst a clear and profound statement of the reasons for believing that such a philosophy about artists and creativity is worse than nonsense. It is a destructive denial of the truth. The truth is not only more palatable but much more hopeful. Kubie's thesis is that the interplay of symbolic processes which comprise the instrument of man's creativity or of psychological illness must be under control to determine the form and fate of