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The following material is from the Introduction and two chapters of a twenty-chapter work-in-progress entitled Mental Health and Creativity. Alternate chapters deal with the specifics of the case histories of Ezra Pound and a composite patient named “Barry.” The former was at times creatively successful but his work was ruined by his psychopathology; the latter was never able to be successfully creative because of his narcissistic and dysthymic disorder. Alternating with those case histories are chapters dealing with more general topics that will hopefully throw more light on these case histories by placing them in the context of when the writers worked: their mileu, what artists are trying to do, and problems typical of the various stages of their lives. The final two chapters deal with the more philosophical topics of metaphysics and creativity, and truth in art.
Included here is one case study chapter and one general discussion chapter. Chapter 13 deals with the second half of the life curve and the theme of striving to reach some sense of transcendence (a major theme in the book and in the work of Pound and Barry, who were both quite disturbed individuals). I deliberately avoided trying to reach a conclusion about how one obtains serenity or success in later stages of life, as I feel there is no single answer and that everyone must work this out individually. Pessimistic authors have outlined the seriousness and difficulty of the problem, and that is nothing new in the literature. Unanumo, for example, is a Christian existentialist who leans on religious solutions quite heavily. Alternatively, we have Marxist solutions, Freudian solutions, and so on.
On this subject I am in disagreement with Hegel, who insisted there is an inevitable dialectical progress of the self-consciousness of the species to higher and higher levels of actualization of the Absolute Spirit, as programmed by “the cunning of reason.” We know from Freud that people commonly become stuck at one s