CHAOS AND CONTROL | A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Unfolding Creative Minds

by Desy Safán-Gerard

HB 288pp, March 2018

This book explores the role of chaos and control in the creative process as well as the difference between talent and creativity.

Part One explores some of the common biases and pitfalls in the analysis of creative people, the role of the accidental in creative work, the nature of creative blocks, passion and its absence, as well as the problem of being able to exercise one’s freedom. The author describes the special needs of creative patients, the common problems arising in therapy, their solutions, and, most importantly, the analyst’s distinctive role when dealing with such patients. She also examines how narcissism, neurosis, and psychosis affect creative work.

Part Two reinforces the themes of the first part by describing the process and history of the author’s own creative path. These are mostly autobiographical accounts of her overall emotional relationship to the arts, reinforcing the themes presented in Part One: the significance of visual artwork; the role of destructiveness; the importance of love and hate during creative work; the role of mistakes, and the special role of music in the author’s paintings based on Pierre Boulez’s music as well as in her overall oeuvre.

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CONTENTS

PART I: THEORIES, CONDITIONS, AND OBSTACLES

1. Chaos and control in the creative process
2. Talent and creativity
3. The role of the accident in the creative act
4. The psychodynamics of creative blocks
5. On not knowing: Discerning the mental and emotional requirements of creative work
6. Why bother?: From indifference to passion
7. Is creativity dangerous?
8. Art and madness

PART II: MY OWN DEVELOPMENT

1. Music: My first love
2. How painting became a passion
3. Creativity: From the painting studio to the consulting room
4. The evolution of a painting
5. Love and hate in the creative process
6. Destructiveness & reparation: A retrospective
7. From mistake to mistake: The creative process in four large paintings
8. As in the flesh

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR



DESY SAFÁN-GERARD is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of California in Los Angeles. Dr. Safán-Gerard has led a threefold life in music, painting, and psychoanalysis.

Her book is based on papers presented in the USA, Europe and South America on the issues confronting a person engaged in the creative process and on the unique needs of creative patients in treatment.