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Starting with the credo that it is the healthy part of the personality that allows a person to be creative, the author investigates factors behind failures to create. First the relation to the external world is considered, followed by a more detailed discussion of factors pertaining to the internal world: the role of pregenital sexuality, and the importance of the universal bisexual wishes. Possible reasons for differences between the sexes are indicated and discussed in relation to clinical material. Main conclusions are: 1. In a sense, all creative acts may be conceptualized as a fusion of the masculine and feminine elements in our psychic structure. If this unconsciously represents stealing the generative powers of the parents, creative activity may be experienced as a transgression and thus become a cause of inhibition. 2. to create is to claim one's right to separate existence and individual identity. This too may be fantasized as a transgression if the creative act is experienced as an attack on the primitive maternal image and may in turn become a source of severe inhibition.
This paper was presented at a Mind and Life seminar arranged by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, in October 1992, the theme being >Sleeping, dreaming and dying<. The first part of this paper summarises Freud's theories on sleeping and dreaming, and the relation of dream theory to the theory of the life and death instincts. Part two presents a clinical vignette including a dream of the analysand as well as a dream of the analyst to illustrate the creative potentiality of dream analysis. Part three is a discussion of the theories of sleep and dream after Freud. Attention is drawn to Geza Roheim's idea of dreaming as an essential elemental force which revitalizes every human being in his relation to himself and others. Reference is also made to Dadoun's concept of dreaming as a possible source of the creation of sexuality and desire rather than the other way round as Freud conceived of it. Bertram Lewin's concept of sleep as a blank screen upon which dream scenes are projected and its link with the primitive image of the >breast mother< is also discussed as well as certain of Winnicott's concepts.
A Child is Being Eaten
(1980)