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Ilany Kogan, a training analyst at the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, has written a book of luminous beauty. Kogan divides the book into three parts: Creativity through the Prism of Analysis; Analysis through the
Prism of Stories from the Bible; and Analysis through the Prism of Paintings and Poems. I will discuss each of these in turn.
In the two chapters of Part I, Creativity through the Prism of Analysis, Kogan sketches out for us, first, a review of classical and contemporary literature regarding the sources and functions of creativity and, second, an understanding of creativity through the prism of various analytic models. Kogan tells us that Freud believed “that the artist, like everyone else, suffers from unfulfilled wishes that cannot be acknowledged because of their forbidden nature. Artists, however, escape a neurotic outcome of this conflict not just by the common sublimations available to ordinary people, but by a gift that enables them to give shape to the forbidden, unconscious fantasy and to express it visually or verbally in a way that avoids censorship” (pp. 3-4). She contrasts this with Melanie Klein's idea of creativity being used to achieve “reparation,” which was seen by Klein as a highly constructive urge involving the attempt to correct the effect of aggressive feelings and urges. Kogan tells us that Hanna Segal uses Kleinian ideas to discuss creativity as “a universal process of development…. an expression of the reparative impulse, which stems from the depressive position” (p. 4).
Kogan also shares with us her understanding of the work of Ernst Kris and Anton Ehrenzweig. Kris sees creativity as a “regression in the service of the ego,” depicting the work of a healthy ego that deals with painful early experiences through different modes of expression. Ehrenzweig, by contrast, views creative function not as regression in the service of the ego, but rather as progression (p. 5).
Kogan next surveys the work of analysts such as Joyce McDougall, J