Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists

215 Pages·2017·11.53 MB·English

by  George Hagman

ART, CREATIVITY, AND
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists collects personal
reflections by therapists who are also professional artists. It explores the relationship
between art and analysis through accounts by practitioners who identify themselves
as dual-profession artists and analysts. The book illustrates the numerous areas where
analysis and art share common characteristics using first-hand, in-depth accounts.
These vivid reports from the frontier of art and psychoanalysis shed light on the
day-to-day struggle to succeed at both of these demanding professions.
From the beginning of psychoanalysis, many have made comparisons between
analysis and art. Recently there has been increasing interest in the relationship
between artistic and psychotherapeutic practices. Most importantly, both profes-
sions are viewed as highly creative, with spontaneity, improvisation, and aesthetic
experience seeming to be common to each. However, differences have also been
recognized, especially regarding the differing goals of each profession: art leading
to the creation of an artwork, and psychoanalysis resulting in the increased welfare
and happiness of the patient. These issues are addressed head-on in Art, Creativity,
and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists.
The chapters consist of personal essays by analyst-artists who are currently
working in both professions; each has been trained in and is currently practicing psy-
choanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The goal of the book is to provide the
reader with a new understanding of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic processes
from the perspective of art and artistic creativity. Drawing on artistic material from
painting, poetry, photography, music, and literature, the book casts light on what
the creative processes in art can add to the psychoanalytic endeavor, and vice versa.
Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists will appeal to
psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, theorists of art, academic artists,
and anyone interested in the psychology of art.
George Hagman, LCSW, is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in pri-
vate practice in New York and Stamford, Connecticut. He is on the faculty of the
Training and Research Institute for Self Psychology, and the Westchester Center for
the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. This book is a companion piece
to his prior Routledge volume Creative Analysis: Art, Creativity, and Clinical Process
(2015).

ART, CREATIVITY, AND
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Perspectives from Analyst-Artists

Edited by George Hagman
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 selection and editorial matter, George Hagman; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Hagman, George, editor.
Title: Art, creativity, and psychoanalysis : perspectives from analyst-artists /
edited by George Hagman.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016028221| ISBN 9781138859111
(hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138859128 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781315717494 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Creative ability—Psychological aspects. | Creation
(Literary, artistic, etc.)—Psychological aspects. | Psychoanalysis and art.
Classification: LCC BF408 .A78 2017 | DDC 701/.15—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016028221
ISBN: 978-1-138-85911-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-85912-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71749-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Keystroke, Neville Lodge, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton
To Carol M. Press – artist, scholar, colleague, and friend.

CONTENTS
Notes on contributors ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xix
1 Coming into being as artist and psychotherapist: keeping self
from falling together too soon 1
Karen M. Schwartz
2 To build a new world: creative and aesthetic choices in
psychoanalysis 20
David Shaddock
3 Making waves 32
Linda Cummings
4 Shame and its undoing: a performer’s desire to be found 47
Rosalind Chaplin Kindler
5 Analyst-artist 57
Diane Lawson Martinez
6 I’ve got a rock ‘n’ roll heart: reflections of a musician-analyst 73
Heather Ferguson
viii Contents
7 Writing, healing, and being healed: my life in poetry and
psychoanalysis 83
Lee Miriam Whitman-Raymond
8 Reclamation and restoration: heroes in the seaweed 106
Sandra Indig
9 On being able to paint 123
Anna Carusi
10 On being and becoming 137
Julia Schwartz
11 Echo 148
Dan Gilhooley
12 The art(s) of witness: through the camera and the psychoanalytic 165
situation
Donna Bassin
Index 181
CONTRIBUTORS
Donna Bassin, MPS, PhD is an art therapist, clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst,
published author, film-maker, and fine art photographer. She is Adjunct Clinical
Assistant Professor at New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy
and Psychoanalysis. She maintains a private practice in New York City. She has
exhibited her work at museums and galleries and was awarded the Gradiva Award
for Artwork Contributions to Psychoanalysis.
Anna Carusi, PsyD, is an Italian self psychologist, member of IAPSP and co-founder
of the Italian Association for Self Psychology (Aipsé). Professor of Psychodynamics
at the University of Rome, she is now in private practice. She has published many
articles on psychological consultancy to health units and educational institutions
and a collection of Kohut’s articles on empathy. She is a painter and has taken part
in several group and solo exhibitions, describing her art as an active meditation
where art is the expression of the relationship between the visible and the invisible.
Rosalind Chaplin Kindler, MFA, Dipl. TCPP, RDT, is a psychotherapist in private
practice in Toronto, working with children and adolescents and their families, as well
as adults. She is past director of the Toronto Child Psychoanalytic Program, now
renamed CICAPP (Canadian Institute for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic
Psychotherapy), a training institute in psychoanalytic psychotherapy for children and
adolescents, where she is also faculty and supervisor. She is a past president of the
Canadian Association of Psychoanalytic Child Therapists. She is a registered drama
therapist with a background in theatre and drama. She has presented and published
in the fields of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and drama therapy, attempting to
forge links between the two. She has a special interest in building bridges between
the worlds of child and adult psychoanalytic practice. She also really likes to sing
the Blues.