The origins of creativity: Sexuality, neurosis and the artist

Abstract

Starting from the perspective of Blake's notion “Energy is eternal delight,” this study is a theoretical speculation of the origin of artistic creativity which expands Freudian theory in a new direction. Since Freud admitted that “the nature of artistic achievement is inaccessible to us psychoanalytically,” an alternative theory of the aesthetic appreciation of art and nature as well as artistic creation is presented drawing on concepts from Reichian bioenergetics, phenomenology and existential psychology, Otto Rank, and the gestalt therapy approach of F.S. Perls.