Discussion

In problems of artistic character and growth, I find the greatest clarity is achieved when one states one's own position against the background of pre-existing psychoanalytic theories. Especially in the psychoanlysis of art one must know one's own bias.

When twelve years ago, my book, The Psychoanalyst and The Artist 1 was published, I felt myself to be only a voice crying in the wilderness. Today there are many voices—the psychology of the creative and the esthetic has become a passionate debate.

It becomes evident, as Dr. Lussheimer has stated, that the analyst of the artist must be sensitive, tactful and esthetically cultured, for neuroses in the highly talented may produce a very definite inhibition or distortion of basic techniques necessary for the mastery of their art. Under certain conditions, an esthetically insensitive, dogmatic, opinionated analyst may, by his very attitudes, create more problems than he solves.

In order to be most effective in aiding the growth of artistic creativeness, the analyst must know something about the arts his various patients try to practice or in which they have had troubled success. Otherwise he is prone to err with neurotic rationalizations on the one hand, and on the other—out of an emotionally determined lack of appreciation of technical intricacies—to pontificate with value judgements. He may become seemingly crude to his patient, hostile and envious, if not a bungler. It is entirely feasible in the proper analysis of an artist to avoid these pitfalls for it is not neurosis as such that is the critical variable as far as art is concerned, but rather technical consequences of neurosis as it impedes talent. Talent, taken in its greatest meaning, is one of the indispensable assets—perhaps the key asset—of the Ego, because he who can create on his own terms can love on other's terms.

It is the problem of talent that bears on the apt distinction Dr. Lussheimer draws between the umbrella maker and the esthetic creator. To Dr. Luss