On Creativity and the Creative Process

What differentiates man from other animals?

Biblical scholars, theologians, philosophers, anthropologists, biologists-any number of scholars and scientists have attempted to answer a question that has resounded down through the millennia.

While perhaps there are as many answers as there are people who have asked this question, one aspect of humanity on which most would agree is man's drive and capacity to be creative. What is it about us that strives for the aesthetic? Why do we express ourselves in abstract dimensions? Why do we respond to harmonious sounds, patterns of spoken and written words, pleasing lines and colors, graceful body movements? And does it matter that we do?

APA President Herbert S. Sacks, M.D., will ask APA members attending the 1998 annual meeting in Toronto to consider these and other issues in a special series of sessions he has planned on creativity on Monday and Tuesday, June 1 and 2.

Sacks believes that it is particularly important for psychiatrists to contemplate the creative spectrum.

"The work we do as psychiatrists is bound with human creativity in our efforts to reach out to patients who are suffering," said Sacks. "Without deploying our creative energies, the work we do can become associated with ennui and augment patients' feelings of anomie."

In attempting to explore human creativity, Sacks has brought together a group of people who have "demonstrated their superb work and have tapped their creative instincts in depicting to us their vision of creativity, which enhances the life of the mind and deepens and broadens our cultural interests."

These are among the people who are participating in the sessions on creativity:

The Guarnieri Quartet is internationally renowned for its refreshing interpretations of classical works. The members of the quartet will address the complexity of a tight-knit group experience in defining the composers' intent. It is anticipated that they will perform several movements to illustrate some of the issues under discussion.

Wolf Kahn is a superb colorist and landscape artist with powerful impressionistic undertones. His work is in many private and museum collections. He will speak about the loneliness associated with the creative artistic effort.

Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D. , is a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University and the author of the 1994 book How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, for which he won the 1994 National Book Award. His most recent work is The Wisdom of the Body: Discovering the Human Spirit. "Shep" Nuland will share truths he has learned about the human condition from deeply personal and professional experience.

Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky is the author of The Genesis of Ethics. A review in the September 1, 1996, Booklist commented that the Bible "has been called the Good Book for centuries, yet it begins with a tangled tale of betrayal, greed, hate, incest, and murder. Still, Visotzky, a prominent rabbi, sees goodness coming out of the Bible if readers are willing to accept it as a challenge to their own moral imagination and not simply as an inspirational story." He was the provocative moderator of the 10-part PBS series "Genesis" by Bill Moyers. Visotzky brings sparkling humor to serious philosophical considerations.

Plans for additional sessions are still under way and will be announced in future issues of Psychiatric News. "The goal of these sessions is to demonstrate that the work we do as psychiatrists is far from being plebeian or formulaic," said Sacks. "It taps into our inner resources and competencies as we struggle with the complexities of the human mind."

Sessions on Violence

Sacks has planned another series of special sessions on Wednesday, June 3, under the title "A Time of Violence," reflecting an area of interest important to him throughout his career and in his presidency.

The session at 9 a.m., "Part I on Juvenile Justice," will be chaired by Lawrence A. Stone, M.D., of Laurel Ridge Hospital in San Antonio, Tex. Participants include Bennett L. Leventhal, M.D., of the University of Chicago; Louis J. Kraus, M.D. of Chicago; and Helen Sacks, M.S.W., a clinical assistant professor of psychiatric social work at the Yale Child Study Center and the former director of Court Clinic in the New Haven Superior Court for Juvenile Matters.

The session at 2 p.m., "Part II: Intergroup Violence," will be chaired by Alan A. Stone, M.D., of Harvard Law School. Participants include Richard Hackman, a professor of sociology at Harvard University; Richard Wrangham, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University; and Adam Kuper, a professor of social anthropology at Brunel College, England.