Creative Explorations

In Art, Literature, Science and the Everyday

Albert Rothenberg, M.D.

The Role of Error in Creativity

Errors constantly occur with the technical and demanding work of creation in art. Managing these impart individualistic aesthetic value.

Self-Creation and Self-Destruction: The Case of Sylvia Plath

Before Sylvia Plath's suicide, uncreative and self-destructive feelings dominated her final poems.

A Creative Process in the Art of Costume Design

The homospatial process, a type of cognition involving two or more images occupying the same mental space, is applied in slide images for a new clothing design.

Anorexia Nervosa Is a Modern Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Anorexia and bulimia appear to be new kinds of disorders, but it is important to recognize that both are modern manifestations of obsessive-compulsive neurosis.

Bipolar Disorder, Creativity, and Treatment

It has been romantically alleged that creative people suffer from bipolar disorder and mental illness. Such disorders interfere with creativity of all types and require treatment.

Committing Errors in the Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia

Errors made in psychotherapy, by therapists or patients, especially those with schizophrenia, play an important role from an educational, emotional, and creative perspective.

Is Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder a Problem?

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder is fairly common in Western culture. Symptoms are exaggerations of adaptive personality features even in highly successful people.

The Iceman Cometh: How O'Neill Created the Famous Play

The underlying story and creation of Eugene O'Neill's drama The Iceman Cometh, now playing on Broadway with Denzel Washington.

John Cheever's Best Creation: His Novel "Falconer"

Toward the end of his life, John Cheever wrote a blockbuster novel. A psychological investigation reveals his use of sep-con articulation in his creative process.

Long Day's Journey Into Night: A Study of Psychological Form

A psychological approach clarifies the play's emotional impact and the psychological defenses on display.

Creativity and Alcoholism

A number of prominent American writers have suffered from alcoholism in the past, but they seldom did their best writing while directly under the influence of alcohol.

Rembrandt's Creativity: The Magnificent Self-Portraits

Rembrandt created more self-portraits than any other major artist. Not a matter of self-aggrandizement, it was the creation of an artistic field based on pictorial self metaphor.

Jackson Pollock's Creation of Abstract Expressionism

Pollock's early painting was derived but he overcame symptoms of bipolar disorder and alcoholism to invent abstract expressionism by means of the creative janusian process.

The Creation of the "The Scream" by Munch

Edvard Munch created "The Scream," a powerful and famous painting. First inspired by a visual hallucination, he converted that for over a year using healthy creative processes.

Is Genius Inherited?

It is usually assumed that genius is a completely inherited attribute but experimental studies vary. This study shows that strong motivation and inheritance play a critical role.

Understanding Anger

Anger is often denied or suppressed but communication of anger can be productive and avoid development of destructive hostility, constant anxiety, and violence..

The Creative Process of Psychotherapy

Effective psychotherapy is a mutual creative process between therapist and patient.

Adolescence and Creativity

Although young children are often free and spontaneous and therefore considered to be creative, true creativity begins in adolescence with the structuring of developmental tasks.

Creativity and Disadvantaged South African Students

South African black students have suffered from deficits in secondary school education. Creative capacities help produce success in professional and advanced general learning.

Psychosis and the Creation of Poetry

Poetry creation is often thought to result from the upsurge of unconscious process. As characteristic of schizophrenic thinking, such upsurge must be molded by creative cognition.

Scientific Creativity: Discovery of the Monoclonal Antibody

Using the creative sep-con articulation process a German biologist dramatically discovered an important new diagnostic and therapeutic approach to cancer and other grave diseases

Einstein's Creative Thinking and Relativity

Albert Einstein's creation of the General Theory of Relativity is still operative today. His initial conception consisted of the creative cognition, the janusian process.

Self Creation and Treatment

Creation of the self in the course of therapy is similar to the process of creation of all types of art. It involves the unearthing of self knowledge, new choices and alternatives.

Family Background, Creativity, and Genius

Is the intense motivation of creative persons and geniuses, as manifested by months- or years-long devotions to a project in science, art, or other fields, due to inheritance or other family background factors? I describe a controlled empirical study of 435 Nobel laureates in science and 215 literary prizewinners.

Creative Psychiatric Revolutions: A History

Psychiatry is one of the most challenging fields in medicine. It has evolved through a series of creative developments, beginning with overcoming beliefs in demonic possession and the removal of chains from the hospitalized to current medicinal, psychotherapeutic and social treatments.

The Sep-Con Articulation Process in Creativity

The sep-con articulation process was discovered in extensive empirical investigations with outstanding literary prizewinners and Nobel laureates in the sciences. It consists of constructing or conceiving connection and functional separation concomitantly.The wide use in creativity, examples, and application do's and don'ts are specified.

The Homospatial Process in Creativity

The homospatial process was discovered in extensive empirical investigations with outstanding literary prizewinners and Nobel Laureates in the sciences. It consists of conceiving two or more discrete entities in the same mental space or location, a conception leading to the articulation of new identities. The wide use in creativity and Does and Don'ts of use are specified.

The Janusian Process in Creativity

The janusian process was discovered in extensive empirical investigations with outstanding literary prizewinners and with Nobel laureates in the sciences. It consists of conceiving and using multiple opposites or antitheses simultaneously. Application of the process in creative work is described through an outline of the appropriate do's and don'ts.

Dr. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann: Creativity in Psychotherapy

Treatment of psychotic patients is very difficult and many practitioners believe that it is impossible to employ psychotherapy ef with such patients. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann was a courageous and creative therapist who extended and improved treatment in dramatic and sustaining ways. Her work has been a model for all mental health practitioners treating severely ill patients.

Creativity and Mental Illness II: The Scream

In a previous post, I showed Jackson Pollock's creation of abstract expressionism during a healthy period. Here, we see Edvard Munch's use of healthy creative processes to produce the famous lithograph "The Scream." Although both artists suffered from Bipolar Disorders, their creative work and thinking consisted of healthy mental processes.

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