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In a recent study (Weissman, 1967) I suggested that the ego's role in creativity is more active than a controlled regression in the service of the ego (Kris, 1944) and minimally involves the utilization of two specific ego functions. Briefly, I postulated a dissociative or desynthesizing function as essential for the temporary liberation of the established order of the psyche, so that newly available drive discharges could be restructured with the aid of the ego's synthetic (Nunberg, 1931) or integrative (Hartmann, 1955) function into new and creative products. The genetic roots of the dissociative function were traced to early development when the new influence of the reality principle demands an alteration of the existing established order of the psyche under the pleasure principle. It is the dissociative function of the ego which repeatedly undoes a previously established stage of psychic development (oral, anal, phallic, etc.) so that a succeeding stage may come into a reigning development.
Correlated with the highly developed combination of dissociative and synthetic functions in creative people, other psychological factors in creative functioning need to be re-examined. The role of sublimation and neutralization should be re-evaluated as to whether or not they are as indispensable as we think for creative functioning. The childhood (and infancy) of the artist, as Greenacre (1957) has recently reconstructed it, should be further elaborated upon in light of these concepts of ego functioning in creativity. I shall consider first the origins of typical characterological traits of creative people which will be considered to have been derived from their special mode of ego functioning.
In the broadest terms, the public often characterizes the creative person as dreamy, odd, crazy, eccentric, rebellious, and nonconforming. Although such traits are not always present in every talented person, it may be said they are frequently characteristic as well as charactero