Of Art and Science

From therapy to art to life

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D.

Creative Writing & the Psyche: Words as Art Objects

A master poet freed me with one simple idea: Discard convention and explore your own impulses, he said. Invent your own art.

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Sabotaging Voice

The paradox: We write because we have something to say but fear of exposure often inhibits our message.

Creative Writing and the Psyche: The Writer's Voice

As critical as voice is to our art, few talk about it—what it is, how we "find" it, what interferes with or enhances it—this elusive thing we can’t make art without.

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Writer's Block and a Mentor

Writer’s block is terrifying. But you can grow as a writer without being destroyed emotionally.

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Envy

Envy and greed have been the most forbidden emotions I’ve battled with throughout my life.

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Conquering Self-Doubt

Learning to write was not easy until I began to see myself as an instrument — recording every thought or feeling in the language in which it arrived. My Rule:Don't erase/criticize

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Antidote to Depression

I needed to give myself over to something whole and alive — that was mine alone. Thus began my life with the possibility of poems. Therein lay my recovery.

Creative Writing and the Psyche: 2 Silences

Creative writing may be the most psychologically challenging of all the arts.

Art as a Path to Emotion

Involvement with art, one's own or another's, is emotionally and psychologically healing.

Who to Turn to When You Need to Talk

If you are one who trusts easily and quickly, consider the possibility that this may work against you rather than for you.

What Feelings Can Disguise

As long as feelings remain hidden, we're powerless to affect change in our lives/relationships.

Identifying Your Feelings

Feelings that are denied or dismissed do not disappear. Instead, they are intensified. Find out how to "take your emotional temperature" and make sense of what you feel.

Roadblocks to Intimacy & Trust X: Breaking the Silence

I know of no relationship that improved without conversation.

Roadblocks to Intimacy and Trust IX: Forgiveness, Finally

Closure for me would only be possible with a clear understanding of my mother’s pathology and its origins.

Roadblocks to Intimacy and Trust VIII: Parenthood? Not Sure?

The Roadblocks to Intimacy and Trust series explores the impact of early relationships on the establishment of intimacy in adulthood. VIII discusses the decision to parent or not.