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PubMed1977

Creative potential in schizophrenia.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the presence of creative potential in a group of hospitalized persons who have been categorized as schizophrenic. Previous work (Buck and Kramer, 1973, 1974) has made it obvious that considerable poetic skill exists in this group of people. While creative potential was apparent in large numbers of those we have worked with, it is unnecessary to claim that our present data represent all (or even a majority) of the hospital population. However, we are concerned with providing a more balanced perspective on the ego strength and creativity which are retained in people who are labeled schizophrenic-even those considered to be regressed. In the following selections, we will attempt to demonstrate, first, an openness to fantasy and an access to primary-process thought which is molded by sufficient technical skill to warrant being labeled poetry, and second, an active, reconstructive capacity which includes a clear intention of communicating with an audience. The technical skill and the reconstructive capacity are critical in substantiating the retention of ego strength necessary for the mobilization of secondary-process cognition. We are interested, therefore, in exploring poetry written with clarity, intelligibility, and cohesiveness, where the visual can be translated into the verbal, where the effort is directed toward communication rather than sorcery, and where sponteneity replacesstereotypy. In the case of originality of style-that is, artistic license-these distinctions may not always be clear; but where questions arise, the artist's ability to justify his own intentions becomes critical.

Cognition↗
PubMed1983

The role of the men's hall in the development of the Anglo-Saxon superego.

This paper is a historical study of ritual space--a bit of psychoanalytic anthropology applied to a particular case, the evolution of the men's hall among the early Anglo-Saxons. I focus particularly on the ritual functions of poetry in the hall, the same poetry which is our major evidence regarding the hall, especially the epic Beowulf. I define the hall as a cultural institution, and redefine the native poetic tradition in relation to the hall's varied ritual life, with which the poetry is so occupied. Though my argument is focused on the hall, it includes a framework of theoretical concerns. Early Anglo-Saxon culture is of anthropological interest chiefly because of its rapid and dramatic emergence from Germanic tribal prehistory into a leading role in the civilization of Christian Europe. The conquest of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth and sixth centuries, and their conversion soon afterward, is a case history of the transformations of a tribal society suddenly introduced to the special forces of civilization and the higher religions that control them. The Anglo-Saxons are fascinating in this regard because of the fortuitous developments that prepared for this transformation and made it so successful.

Culture↗
PubMed1992

Hilda Doolittle and creativity. Freud's gift.

The problem of work inhibition in a woman is addressed in terms of a specific case. The paper investigates the patient's view of how such an inhibition was cured in a brief analytic treatment of the American poet Hilda Doolittle conducted by Freud in 1933-34.

Creativity↗
PubMed1995

The child is father of the man. Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of immortality and his secret sharers.

William Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" is manifestly about both the poet's loss of inspirational perceptive powers and emotional intensity with age, and the compensations of maturity. It also refers to the poet's fear that he might lose his "secret sharers," real or fantasied, consciously or unconsciously conceived parent substitutes for whom and with whom one creates. Wordsworth anticipated that with his upcoming marriage he would lose his sister Dorothy and his close friend and collaborator Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who played important roles in his creativity. Optimism and relief replaced sadness when he realized that he was not deprived of his sharers. The concepts of "secret sharers" and "collective alternates" for whom one creates are intimately related.

England↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Speaking unavoidable truths: understanding early childhood sexual and physical violence among women in prison.

Women in prison have often suffered physical and sexual abuse as children which substantively contributes to their substance abuse, violence, and criminal behaviors. To understand women's offending, and subsequent health issues, it is helpful to understand their own victimization. In this participative action research, women used poetry as both a process and a product to confront the truths of their lives in terms of what was done to them and what they have done to others and themselves. As the women learned to speak their own truths, those same truths became unavoidable to themselves. This rise into consciousness is demonstrated through excerpts from the participants' writings.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Disconfirming beliefs: the use of poetry to know the lived experience of student nurses in mental health clinicals.

An aesthetic pattern of knowing involves moving beyond classifications and knowing the whole individual. Students are taught to provide holistic care to patients, but instructors evaluate students primarily from a scientific, empirical perspective. To add balance between the art and the science of nursing practice, students were assigned to write an original poem about their clinical experience in mental health nursing. This article reports a qualitative analysis of those poems to expand the instructors' knowledge of the student experience. Five themes and one consistent pattern were identified. Insights and implications of student poetry writing are explored.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

On sexual behavior and sex-role reversal.

Sex is not about reproduction; sex is about (re-)combination of DNA. Sex, not reproduction, always involves physical contact between two individuals; to achieve this, strategies of sexual behavior evolved. Sexual behavior, therefore, did not evolve as part of a reproductive strategy, but evolved to enable exchange of genetic material. In multicellular organisms the situation is more complicated than in unicellular organisms, as it is impossible for each cell within a multicellular body to have sex with another cell. Hence, evolution selected a system in which the possibility to have sex was limited to only one cell-line: the germ cells. As a result, sex adopted the character of fertilization, and sex and reproduction became inseparably linked. Still, in some species, including humans, sexual behavior still exhibits features of its evolutionary past: in humans (like in bonobo's) most sexual activity and many sexual behavioral patterns have nothing to do with reproduction (masturbation, homosexual behavior, for example); in humans, sexual behavior also became associated with other strategic objectives, such as intensifying the pair bond, expression of love or power. Different genders - male and female - evolved, and each gender evolved typical gender-related sexual and reproductive strategies as well. In most multicellular species, these strategies became inextricably mixed, and sexual behavior increasingly more - and in most species even exclusively - 'served' the interests of reproduction: sexual behavior became more or less synonymous with reproductive behavior. In most species, the 'mix' of sexual and reproductive strategies evolved into typical gender-related patterns of behavior, that is, in typical 'sex-roles'. Often, males are bigger and more 'beautiful' (= more intensely ornamented) than females; males compete with each other for access to females; males court females, while females choose males ('female choice'). However, ecological circumstances may cause a reversal of sex-roles, resulting in a situation in which females are bigger and more intensely ornamented than males, females compete for access to males, females court males and only males invest in care for the young, provided they are relatively certain of their paternity. Also, as in the case of the spotted hyena, females may be highly virilized and be socially dominant. This 'sex-role reversal' is seen, e.g., when males are relatively rare due to high predation pressure, or when the process of reproduction is very risky for the same reason: then it is 'better' that males, with their plenty of sperm, are wasted, than females with their few, precious eggs. It can be argued, with women being the fair sex, exhibiting competitive behavior and with an actively displaying courtship, and with men investing heavily in their offspring, meanwhile taking all (cultural) kinds of measures to guarantee their paternity, that humans, too, exhibit some degree of sex-role reversal.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The poet syndrome: opiates, psychosis and creativity.

For some people, heroin is a self-medicating tool used to control innate psychic sensitivity. The habitual use of heroin provides the sensitive addict with a definition of consciousness by containment, psychic buffering, and psychic marking. This article is an examination of the political and social history of opiates, opiates as antipsychotics, "drug of choice" as a determinant of self-medication, and the connection between creativity, spirituality, psychosis and addiction. Using clinical observation, the article explores the poet syndrome hypothesis and offers direction for an alternative drug treatment paradigm.

Creativity↗
PubMed1999

Literary resources for bereavement.

The bereavement process can be aided by multiple resources. Hospice counselors and related therapeutic professionals turn most easily to their own disciplines and training. In this article, complementary or ancillary resources from literature have been offered. If healing includes the "storying" and "restorying" of lives, then literature can enrich and facilitate the mourning process. Suggestions of resources and some of their connections to hospice care have been offered.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Justice Joseph Story and death in early 19th-century America.

Justice Joseph Story, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1811 until his death in 1845, suffered many losses during his lifetime. His first wife died a little more than one-half year after their marriage, and her death was followed a few months later by the death of Story's father. Five of his 7 children died. Other family members, friends, and colleagues died. Story was insightful and articulate in describing these losses. Thus a study of his reactions to, and coping mechanisms for, these deaths provides an excellent perspective on how death was dealt with in early 19th-century America.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Sylvia Plath: a protocol analysis of her last poems.

Personal documents have a significant place in psychological research. Suicide notes, diaries, novels, poems, and so on allow us to better understand the suicidal mind. The works of Sylvia Plath--a poet who killed herself at age 30--are prime examples for such protocol study. This article examines the last 6 months of Plath's poetry, revealing a suicidal malaise. Associating the results to the lives of Cesare Pavese and the case study of Natalie, a Terman-Shneidman subject of the intellectually gifted, the study shows a unit thema that facilitates the process of death. The poems reveal such themes as unbearable pain, loss, and abandonment that likely contributed significantly to death becoming the only solution.

Documentation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Suicide and creativity: the case of Sylvia Plath.

This article explores the idea that although much can be learned by viewing Sylvia Plath's poetry as an expression of her thinking and affect, additional insights are afforded by reversing the typical direction of effect and by viewing Plath's affect, and in particular her depression, as a result of her writing. Consistent with this interpretation is Plath's huge investment in writing. This may have contributed to the sensitivity that predisposed her to stress and depression. This perspective is tied to the existing creativity literature and interwoven and contrasted with existing descriptions of Plath's work and tragic death.

Creativity↗