The author examines how psychological creativity can foster resilience in the aftermath or the prospect of trauma. Starting with Jung's discovery, working with a delusional patient, that mythopoesis serves as a powerful defense in psychotic patients suffering the aftermath of trauma, the author discusses the contrary strategy of many neurotic patients, who defend themselves with a turn to realism. The author then describes how in the modern era creative artists have relied both on the turn to fantasy and the turn to realism, and he shows how both processes manifest in Courbet and Munch.