EPILOGUE

The articles presented here highlight how the various forms of creative expression, included within the psychoanalytic frame and embraced by the psychoanalytic perspective, can be innovative and effective tools in adult analysis. Contemporary psychoanalysis has been liberated from the shackles of its early positivistic values in which its scientific basis was emphasized, techniques were closely tied to theoretical concepts and its sole aim was to detect and reveal the truth buried in the unconscious of the patient. In these traditional models, artistic or creative expressions were reduced to sublimations of fundamental drives organized as sex and aggression.

Our collection of writings contributes to this ongoing liberation by expanding the range of creative expression in psychoanalytic practice to include movement, improvisation and spontaneity, poetry, photography, and art and literature. Aesthetic values, encompassing the broad range of modalities included by our authors, now have a firm place in our understanding of the interactive process between patient and therapist. Body movements and style; artistic expression by the analyst; improvisational responsiveness, whether spontaneous or carefully planned; and other playful strategies are now part of the psychoanalytic spectrum of behaviors that may play important roles in the therapeutic process. They are seen as emerging from the lived experiences of the participants in both the past and the present.

Such new attentiveness to the significance of creative elements bodes well for the construction of much-needed bridges between the two solitudes of child and adult analysis. The use of play and other creative expression in psychoanalysis have long been relegated to the realms of the expressive therapies and child therapists. The connections between theory, practice, and psychoanalytic training that incorporate forms of creative expression in psychoanalysis can be further explored to develop awareness of these aesthetic