Creativity

The possibility has to be considered that the infant, in danger of overwhelming himself with his own excitement, forms object-representations in ways dictated by expediency. It is necessary for survival to establish in one's mind an all-powerful and loving object-representation that contains in it major parts of the self-representation. In fact, all the vital and affective functions are attributed to the parenting object and are used only under a "franchise-like" illusion.

As part of its mission to honor human dignity and to care for the poor and vulnerable, Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP), Cincinnati, has made a systemwide commitment to address housing needs in the communities it serves. A priority for the system is providing safe, affordable housing options for the low-income elderly. CHP's approach goes beyond "bricks and mortar," however. The system aims not only to provide a home for senior adults but also to enrich their lives.

The symbiotic phase of development is crucially involved in determing the nature of psychopathology as well as promoting psychic processes that are involved in creative activity and intimate object relationships. In a well-established object relationship, the partners relate to each other in a symbiotic fashion. From the analysis of married persons (and some clinical material is presented in this paper), the author concludes that the fundamental character structure, psychopathological or otherwise, of each spouse is identical.

The various factors which seem to be important in the creative child with extraordinary potential include: A good biologic endowment, often with high intelligence and a correlation between special sensory sensitivities and other physical requirements to implement the special interest. There is also sometimes the capacity to utilize or else compensate for deficit. The fostering of interests by a parent or interested adult. Specific kinds of ongoing encouragement. Sometimes there is self-selection of interest by the child. The child must feel valued and loved.

This paper discusses the ego functioning and self psychological aspects of falling in love and passionate love. These universal and extraordinary phenomena are conceptualized as representing the activity of the creative imagination in solving problems related to coping with intense narcissistic and libidinal pressures. The work of other authors is reviewed and recast into a metapsychological framework involving ego and superego contributions to the experience, and focused on self cohesion.

In the initial phase of a romantic relationship, excitement often reflects the reawakening of early narcissistic fantasy. For most couples, when the passionate intensity that is derived from primitive narcissism fades, the expansiveness of a developing sense of self that is a by-product of the creative process can, in turn, revitalize the partnership. Arieti's work on creativity is applied to understanding how some passionate intensity can be retained over the lifetime of a marriage.

The purpose of this hermeneutic study was to investigate the essence of spirituality of terminally ill patients. In-depth unstructured interviews were used as the method for data collection. In the six-month period of data collection, the researcher was in the role of a hospice palliative care consultant who directly took care of the subject patients in a hospice ward of a teaching hospital. The six subjects were selected purposively according to various demographic backgrounds. Interview transcripts provided the data for analysis.

This article deals with critical psychic transformation in a schizoid personality disorder that evolves in an object relations psychoanalysis in which "developmental mourning" plays a central role. Within a mourning process that allows for the grieving of loss related to arrested separation-individuation development, the analysand confronts the existential grief of regret that had always unconsciously haunted her. The unconscious guilt related to the existential grief of regret had caused much dissociation of self-experience and affect states.

This paper explores the issue of how character is created and re-created in the context of relationships. This theme, salient in the recent film The Hours, has been particularly problematic for creative women, who are often caught in tensions between self-development and relationship. Two case examples are given, in counterpoint to the film and to illustrations from Woolf's life and work. Through these various lenses, we can consider the complex interplays between our conjectures as to the expected price of relationship, and the actual price exacted as our various dramas unfold.

Interest in both spirituality and complementary therapies is growing, with their inclusion in both daily life and in health care. The concept of spirituality and the delivery of a therapy have a certain synergy as they both espouse a view of the world that recognises the importance of the whole person. Increasingly, clients want their values and beliefs attended to, perhaps choosing a therapy as a pathway to nourish their sense of the spiritual. Consequently working in a holistic way the complementary therapist needs to acknowledge the spiritual dimension of the client.