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Depression and Creativity is the English title for a book written in French in 1976 called Le sens du désespoir (the meaning of despair). The French title is closer than the English to the intent and spirit of André Haynal's work, which could be described as a meditation on the depressive affect in pathological and normal states.
In Part I (the book has a preface and two main sections) Haynal approaches his subject through a variety of topics—childhood, helplessness, death and immortality, introjection and identification, the superego, and defences against depression. The author draws on his wide reading to explore the still controversial aspects of the aetiology, structure, and treatment of depression. Haynal grapples with the depressive affect as it exists in the pathology of severe depression, as it exists in neurotics during periods of change, and as it is part of normal development. The question which seems unanswered concerns the difference between these depressions. Should the same term be used when the depression leads to maturation, to the fulfilment of creative potential, or to suicide? Haynal feels that it should; he draws on many writers in order to understand why some depressions are mutative and others so blocking in analytic work. He concludes that the degree of trauma and the type of defence are the differentiating factors in each case, while the depressive affect remains the same.
In the second half of the book Haynal provides us with a concise review of all major ideas on depression written in French and English (before his date of publication). Author by author, he describes the evolution of ideas on depression in psychoanalytic literature from Freud and Abraham to Jacobson and Bergeret. This section of the book is a valuable reference work in its own right, for teaching and for theoretical review.
Lastly, though first in the book, the author has written a preface of conclusions, a personal statement of his position as a theoretician and his