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IN THIS ISSUE WE CELEBRATE THE CREATIVE ARTS AND THEIR relationship to psychoanalytic theory and thinking. Beginning with Freud (1908, 1914), psychoanalysts have been turning their attention to the arts and creativity. Klein (1929), Kris (1952), Jung (1953), Greenacre (1957), and Gedo (1983) also made early, important contributions to this literature. In the pages that follow, we turn to more contemporary voices and ask the following questions: How do artists view their own creative process? How do we understand the meaning of art and creativity in the lives of the creators, viewers, or audience members? How do art and psychoanalysis become integrated for patients and clinicians who make art both within and outside of the consulting room?
We begin with “The Elegant Adaptation: On Creativity in Psychoanalysis and Art—An Interview with Danielle Knafo, PhD,” by Spyros Orfanos. Dr. Knafo is one of the leading contemporary voices in the literature of psychoanalytic theories of creativity and art. In a lively conversation, she and Dr. Orfanos survey her prolific work and the state of contemporary perspectives on the artistic process. In “Art Lust,” Lynn Oliva brings us into her very personal and erotic psychoanalytic world with Picasso, Klimt, and other great painters, when she asks us what we actually see when we really look at a piece of art. Accompanying black-and-white photos of these works serve to illustrate the article, but you can go to our website and find the color photos, which add an additional dimension to this stimulating piece. (Color photos from all of the art pieces and music from Spyros Orfanos's music article can be found on our Web site, )
Psychoanalyst and painter Lynn Somerstein, author of “The Great Mistake,” tells us that creating art helps her to make sense of the world