CREATIVE MINDS (Writers’ Block is Good News!): Psychotherapeutic Approaches and Insights
Document Type
Column
Streaming Media
Publication Date
9-3-2024
Abstract
For clinicians treating creative patients of all types, dealing with their particular concerns requires both psychotherapeutic acumen and a measure of artfulness. Creative patients—writers, performers, painters, musicians, etc.—bring a unique array of psychological issues into the treatment room. And while their artistic struggles are inextricably bound up in their personal ones, they often present in ways that can vary greatly from what is seen in the traditional patient. But my goals for this column extend beyond these patients to clinicians themselves, who perhaps are seeking to explore their own artistic expression. Over my years in practice, I have worked with many psychiatrists, psychologists, and physicians who have published memoir, fiction, nonfiction, self-help, poetry, and vignettes in various clinical journals. Plus, those who compose music, do sculpture, and show paintings. Not to mention a dozen PhD candidates struggling with their dissertations, stereotypically—yet often truly—due to procrastination. I hope those clinicians reading this will find some insights that pertain to their own creative goals. In addition to which, I will address both countertransference in the therapeutic dyad with creative patients, as well as the subtle danger of an intersubjective conjunction.
Publication Title
Psychiatric Times
Recommended Citation
Palumbo, Dennis, "CREATIVE MINDS (Writers’ Block is Good News!): Psychotherapeutic Approaches and Insights" (2024). Pepperdine University, Psychology Division Scholarship. Paper 57.
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/gseppsych/57