Mended by the Muse: Creative Transformations of Trauma

Author(s) : Sophia Richman

Part of Psychoanalysis in a New Key series - more in this series

Mended by the Muse: Creative Transformations of Trauma

Book Details

  • Publisher : Routledge
  • Published : 2014
  • Cover : Paperback
  • Pages : 192
  • Category :
    Trauma and Violence
  • Category 2 :
    Psychoanalysis
  • Catalogue No : 35345
  • ISBN 13 : 9780415883641
  • ISBN 10 : 0415883644
Paperback
£46.99
Usually despatched within 4-5 working days
Free UK Delivery over £25
Add to basket
Add to wishlist

There are currently no reviews
Be the first to review

Leave a review

Mended by the Muse: Creative Transformations of Trauma is an in-depth exploration of the relationship between trauma and creativity. It is about art in the service of healing, mourning, and memorialization. This book addresses the questions of how artistic expression facilitates the healing process; what the therapeutic action of art is, and if there is a relationship between mental instability and creativity. It also asks how self-analysis through art-making can be integrated with psychoanalytic work in order to enrich and facilitate emotional growth. Drawing on four decades of clinical practice and a critical reading of creativity literature, Sophia Richman presents a new theory of the creative process whose core components are relational conceptualizations of dissociation and witnessing.

This is an interdisciplinary book which draws inspiration from life histories, clinical case material, neuroscience, and interviews with creators, as well as from various art forms such as film, literature, paintings, and music. Some areas of discussion include: art born of genocide, confrontation with mortality in illness and aging, and the clinical implications of memoirs written by psychoanalysts. Visual images are interspersed throughout the text that illustrate the reverberations of trauma and its creative transformation in the work of featured artists. Mended by the Muse: Creative Transformations of Trauma powerfully articulates how creative action is one of the most effective ways of coping with trauma and its aftershocks - it is in art, in all its forms, that sorrow is given shape and meaning. Here, Sophia Richman shows how art helps to master the chaos that follows in the wake of tragedy, how it restores continuity, connection and the will for a more fully lived life.

This book is written for psychoanalysts as well as for other mental health professionals who practice and teach in academic settings. It will also be of interest to graduate and post-graduate students and will be relevant for artists who seek a better understanding of the creative process.

Customer Reviews

Our customers have not yet reviewed this title. Be the first add your own review for this title.

Sign up for our new titles email   Sign up to our postal mailing list   Sign up for postal updates