The Creative Process in Painting: Milner, Marion, On Not Being Able to Paint. Second Edition with a Forward by Anna Freud, New York:  Internation University Press, Inc., 1967,  184 pp.

This unusual book, illustrated by the author, as a moving dedication: “To my Son and his Generation and may they not take as long as I have in finding out about these matters.”

The matters the author has found out deal with the freedom of expression as the basis for spontaneity and creativity. Anybody who has experienced a therapeutic relationship with a creative personality, knows to what extent neurotic inhibitions can interfere with the freedom of creation. The author's presentation is particularly meaningful and fascinating, since she is not an accomplished artist but a “fumbling beginner.” Thus, the analysis of the inhibitions of her creativity is of universal significance.

Mrs. Milner spent five years studying how children are affected by orthodox educational methods. She then proceeded to examine the core of inhibitions interfering with the process of learning and related them to her own difficulties in learning how to paint, which she had experienced since early childhood.

The turning point in her thinking about these problems