Creativity and madness : new findings and old stereotypes
Albert Rothenberg investigates how two such opposite conditions -- outstanding creativity and psychosis -- could coexist in the same individual. Rothenberg concludes that high-level creativity transcends the usual modes of logical thought -- and may even superficially resemble psychosis. But he also discovers that all types of creative thinking generally occur in a rational and conscious frame of mind, not in a mystically altered or transformed state.Far from being the source -- or the price -- of creativity, Rothenberg discovers, psychosis and other forms of mental illness are actually hindrances to creative work. Disturbed writers and absent-minded professors make great characters in fiction, but Rothenberg has uncovered an even better story -- the virtually infinite creative potential of healthy human beings
Print Book, English, ©1990
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md., ©1990
vii, 199 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780801840111, 9780801849770, 0801840112, 0801849772
21042528
A scientist looks at creativity
The creative process in art and science
Inspiration and the creative process
The mystique of the unconscious and creativity
Psychosis and the creation of poetry
Self-destruction and self-creation
The perils of psychoanalyzing (or scandalizing) Emily Dickinson
The psychosis and triumph of August Strindberg
Homosexuality and reativity
The muse in the bottle
Eugene O'Neill's creation of The Iceman cometh
Creativity and mental illness
Psychotherapy and creativity
Spine title: Creativity & madness