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It has long been recognized that artistic creativity and regression are somehow related. Freud noted a certain flexibility of repression among artists, enabling them to “salvage from the whirlpool of their emotions the deepest truths to which we others have to force our way, ceaselessly groping among torturing uncertainties.”6 Kris, in his examination of the creative process, concludes that creative regression is a product of ego strength; the artist is able to control the regressive act, allowing primary process material to come into the preconscious and so be available for later artistic elaboration.10
The case, says Kris, is otherwise with pathological regression. There the ego is a hapless victim of the regressive process: the material which erupts into consciousness cannot be elaborated into art. Thus the psychotic artist “seeks no audience and his modes of expression remain unchanged once the psychotic process has reached a certain intensity.”10 Since art depends on the intactness of the ego, it follows that severe ego disruption tends to preclude artistic creativity. Kubie, from a somewhat different basis, arrives at a similar conclusion. “Neurosis,” he says, “corrupts, mars, distorts, and blocks creativeness in every field.”11
Yet common observation suggests that the relationship between pathology and creativity may not be so clear-cut. Many artists have