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Exploration of the role of gratification in transference, and its utilization by the patient as a compensatory mechanism, leads us to the recognition of a parallel between the process of cure in analysis and the stages in the development of the sense of reality.* By means of verbalization, subject to secondary process in the analytic work, the patient recapitulates the transition from the ego phase of omnipotence of thought or word—in the compensatory transference phantasies of gratification—to the final phase of the reality ego.
To state the parallel still leaves the question unanswered of how verbalization can help to achieve this goal. The question might be stated in another framework. The main share in healing has been ascribed to the process of bringing into consciousness, by means of free association, that which was previously unconscious. Yet, since the basic infantile wishes of the unconscious remain indestructible, how does bringing them into consciousness in itself effect the individual's acceptance of reality?
To answer this question more fully it may help us to look outside the analytic situation, in real life itself, for that activity in which the apparent conflict between the requirements of reality and the ceaseless pressure of unconscious impulses is most fully resolved. This, according to Freud, is the unique accomplishment of artistic creativity. In his work the artist can give expression to his unconscious, yet in its being work, consciously mastered and socially directed, the way back to reality is found. This is the dual dynamic of creativity, that it can turn toward the inner world, yet direct itself to outer reality. “The artist projects his ego in polymorphous transformations into his work, that is, he projects his inner experiences into an imagined outer