Frederickson examines those factors that have resulted in reductionism in psychoanalytic writing about the analyses of artists. The acceptance by psychoanalytic writers of stereotypes of artists (e.g., as prophets or madmen) has contributed to this misunderstanding. Freud's conception of the artist is distinguished from those of his followers, many of whom fail to grasp Freud's notions. Freud identified an internal kinship between the artist and the neurotic, but followers of Freud have frequently equated the two. Both the artist and the neurotic, in Freud's view, withdrew from an unsatisfactory reality, but Freud was explicit in stating that creative artists