The Roots of Creativity by Mark Winborn, PhD

"From the psychological standpoint five main groups of instinctive factors can be distinguished: hunger, sexuality, activity, reflection, and creativity.”

C.G. Jung, Psychological Factors in Human Behavior, CW8, 1936, para 246

This seminar series offers an introduction to creative experience from Jungian and psychoanalytic perspectives. As noted above, Jung proposed that there is a creative instinct just as there are instincts associated with hunger and sexuality. In this introductory series, we will explore several definitions of creativity as well as examining the influences, both collective and individual, on the emergence of creative activity. We will also examine the psychological blocks (defenses) against creativity, how to engage those defenses, and how analysis can facilitate moving beyond psychological blocks to creativity. We will examine the psychological components of reflection, imagination, and reverie that foster creative expression. Finally, we will explore how psychopathology and creative expression interact. Each seminar be two hours in length, with approximately the last 20 – 30 minutes devoted to experiential creativity exercises.

Seminar 1 (September 25, 2021) – What is Creativity?

·       This seminar will focus on general perspectives about creativity from the perspective of artists, artistic processes, and archetypal patterns underlying creativity. Examples will be drawn from visual arts, poetry, literature, film, sculpture, and music.

Seminar 2 (October 23, 2021) – Psychoanalytic and Jungian Theories of Creativity

·       This seminar will highlight the major views of creativity from psychoanalytic and Jungian perspectives – including figures such as Jung, Hillman, Winnicott, Bion, and Meltzer. Of particular focus will be the intersection between creativity, imagination, and psychopathology.

Seminar 3 (November 20, 2021) – Working Analytically with Creative Patients  

·       This seminar will focus on the techniques, goals, and issues in working with creative individuals. Focal issues will include working with the artist’s defenses, blocks in the individual’s creative process, and the analyst’s counter-transference issues in working with creative individual’s – especially idealization of the patient’s creative process and envy.

Seminar 4 (December 18, 2021) – Engaging Creatively as Spiritual Practice and Individuation

·       The seminar will focus on the practice of creativity – as a way of deepening engagement with daily life as well as furthering individuation development. We will focus on specific artistic pursuits as well as a more general approach to “living creatively.”