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The study of creativity is an ongoing interest of self psychology. I have discussed how art objects can have selfobject meaning for both the audience and for their creators. Recently, Dr. Howard Baker (1988) explored the contributions of the painter Vincent Van Gogh and discussed the artist's selfobject needs. I think there are a number of reasons why self psychology is congenial, in theory, practice, and in its general spirit, to the development of thinking about creativity. One of these derives from Kohut's early recognition that a direct outcome of the restoration to cohesiveness of a previously fragmented or defensively distorted self-organization was the “uninterrupted flow” toward creative expression in some form (Kohut, 1977, pp. 40, 54). To introduce this chapter, I offer a clinical vignette whose purpose is to illustrate (1) the expression of creative action in the fabric of clinical work and (2) the significant expression of oppositionism as part and parcel of that creative action.
Lydia was a married mother of three children and a professional woman in the health field. She was regarded generally as highly competent in both her professional and personal life. Lydia sought treatment because of persisting depressive symptoms of several years' duration that met the psychiatric diagnostic criteria for a Major Depressive Disorder. In spite of the many successes in her career, her