Creative States of Mind: Psychoanalysis and the Artist's Process

This book explores the creative process through interviews with professional artists and psychoanalytic theory, shedding light on the origin of new ideas and the artists state of mind. It presents the process as a series of interconnected and overlapping stages, moving between the inner world, the outer world, and the spaces in between.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 136 pages
Publication date: 20 February 2019
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

What is it like to be an artist? Drawing on interviews with professional artists, this book takes the reader inside the creative process. The author, an artist and a psychotherapist, uses psychoanalytic theory to shed light on fundamental questions such as the origin of new ideas and the artist's state of mind while working.

Based on interviews with 33 professional artists, who reflect on their experiences of creating new works of art, as well as her own artistic practice, Patricia Townsend traces the trajectory of the creative process from the artist's first inkling or 'pre-sense, through to the completion of a work, and its release to the public. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, particularly the work of Donald Winnicott, Marion Milner and Christopher Bollas, the book presents the artist's process as a series of interconnected and overlapping stages, in which there is a movement between the artist's inner world, the outer world of shared 'reality, and the spaces in-between.

Creative States of Mind: Psychoanalysis and the Artists Process fills an important gap in the psychoanalytic theory of art by offering an account of the full trajectory of the artist's process based on the evidence of artists themselves. It will be useful to artists who want to understand more about their own processes, to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in their clinical work, and to anyone who studies the creative process.

Weight: 248g
Dimension: 158 x 233 x 10 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367146160