II The Creative Act as a Means of Overcoming Resistance in Treatment

It is the intent of the authors to illuminate the relationship of the creative process to psychic healing and growth, and to describe its use as a method of ego integration. More specifically, the writers wish to describe the creative act as a means of overcoming resistance in treatment. As a part of this process, the relationship of primary and secondary thinking to metaphorical and imaginative productions will be elaborated upon. Finally, we will describe some of the creative uses of a therapist's personal resources that can be mobilized to overcome crucial barriers in the patient-therapist dialogue.

As a specialist in symbolic communication, an expressive therapist requires a theory that relates both to the patient's symbols in the treatment process and to their developmental meaning. Dreams, fantasy, art, and play operate by condensation, displacement and symbolization, which are the organizing modes of the primary process. These are the tools of the expressive therapist, functioning in the service of ego mastery or self expression.

Noy proposes that during the first years of life condensation, displacement, and symbolization serve to organize experience towards the creation of self-nuclei, the basic components of the self13a. The primary process is associated with the normal development of the self. It is not an inferior process but an essential, life-giving force that remains with us throughout our entire existence. It acts as an organizing force for experiences about the self and as a source of nurturance to build and expand the self. His main thesis is that

“primary processes are used by the ego for all functions aimed at preserving self-continuity and identity and assimilating any new experiences

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and lines of action into the self-schema. The secondary processes are used for all functions aimed at encountering reality and for any inner integration and mastery which is done in relation to reality.”13b

This assimilation enables the self not only to maintain its