Creative Artists and Intrapsychic Structure

Abstract

The recent psychoanalytic literature on creative artists is characterized by a paucity of empirical research. This study reviews some of the main analytic hypotheses, derived from object relations and self-psychology theory, about the intrapsychic structure characterizing artists and empirically tests those suppositions. The Rorschach test was administered to two groups of graduate students: twenty enrolled in Masters of Fine Arts programs and a control group of twenty students enrolled in Masters programs in non-art fields. Test results were analyzed via scoring systems designed to assess pertinent psychoanalytic constructs. Compared to the control subjects, the art students exhibited: more frequent generation of transitional objects; greater fluidity of self/other boundaries; more extensive preoccupation with early separation/individuation issues; more vulnerability to self-fragmentation anxiety; and greater manufacturing of idealized objects.