Presenter: |
George A. Hagman, MSW |
Chair: |
Edward P. McCrorie, PhD |
Self Psychology Page | 22nd Conference Program
Summary
This paper presents a comprehensive theory of the creative process. The thesis is that art is the externalization of self-experience and the motivation to create can be characterized as a desire for an experience of self-idealization. As a result, during the creative process the artist engages in dialectic with her own idealized subjectivity in the objectified form of the developing artwork. The feeling of harmony (aesthetic resonance) which the artist experiences with the work in progress is a form of selfobject experience. The artist longs to establish this form of selfobject tie. However, in the course of creating a particular artwork, the artist inevitably experiences the selfobject tie as elusive, precarious, or broken. The artist is repeatedly disillusioned as to the work’s perfection and he or she seeks to strengthen or restore the selfobject tie through its gradual refinement. By this means, the artwork is moved closer to a formal ideal. The repeated experience of self-restoration and the creation (and re-creation) of a truly ideal object out of one’s self explains the addiction-like quality of creativity. Through creation the artist triumphs over the ineluctability of selfobject failure and the vulnerability of self-experience. In the end, the artist’s fantasy is that he or she will surmount personal mortality through art. A case example will be presented to illustrate the above thesis.