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The title of this group project which Dr Kris chaired is in part a euphemism. the artistically or scientifically gifted patients ranging in age from 9 to 36. This report of a work still in progress aims at illustrating Kris's contributions to two themes especially his own, the nature of the artist, and the methodology of psycho-analytic research. The full analyses of these patients were regularly reported for group discussion.
A young mathematician's attempts to ward off nocturnal sexual feeling by a preoccupation with mathematical problems was sometimes disturbed by erotic feelings, and the solution of the problem might be accompanied by orgasm. Contrary to expectation, a successful secondary process type of discharge could be accompanied by intense elementary effects. The analysis showed that affects were permissible only when they had been completely sublimated and defence was directed to warding off competitive impulses which the outstanding ability unconsciously served.
The impingement of the conflict upon the level of performance was traceable only in the fact that the patient sometimes solved problems without being able to visualize how he obtained his results. Kris pointed out that this problem was not covered by concepts dealing with the transformation of psychic energy (neutralization), which neglect the speed of the process. By using a hypothesis in which the rapidity of the transformation would be the central issue, it might be seen to be characteristic of such a