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The subtitle of this book tells quite early which aspects of the developmental disorders the author will be concerned with, namely “The Transitional Space in Mental Breakdown and Creative Imagination.” While mental breakdown and creative imagination may seem to have little in common, Giovacchini has written an interesting theoretical bridge between these two, liberally interlaced with chemical material.
His major thesis is that he is not satisfied with the classical view that acute psychosis cannot be treated by psychoanalysis. He feels rather that an extension of psychoanalytic theory must be made, to include the clinical manifestations of damage done in the preverbal period. Since the manifestations of this damage are in later life based on preverbal and prestructural development, any attempt to work with persons so injured will require a mutual interplay between both patient and therapist. Since the injury to the developing psyche came so early, essentially before any ego development had occurred, the primitive unconscious of both patient and therapist must be taken into account, no easy task.
In fact, a major theme of this book is that any effective treatment of psychosis must include an attempt at a thorough understanding of both transference and countertransference elements. Much space is devoted to an explicit spelling out of this interplay using frank discussions of patients he has treated over the years.
In the last section of the book, he deals with his personal views of the creative process based on creative persons who have needed, sought, and often benefited from psychoanalysis. Actually, this is less than a third of the book, although it shares the subtitle. The term “creative is used to include ego growth, either naturally or by therapy, and the poorly understood “major creative” behavior such as seen in the successful work of artists, scientists, and the like.
Part One is entitled “Psychic Development and Psychopathology.” In this section, the author dea