The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoes Frenzy to Love and Creativity

Through the life stories of women such as Camille Claudel, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Anne Sexton, and Susan Farrell, and clinical case studies, Susan Kavaler-Adler offers penetrating insights into the nature of the creative process. Kavaler-Adler contrasts unsuccessful psychological treatments with object-relations therapy which is able to resolve the pathological narcissism of creative addiction and allow the emergence of healthy modes of self-expression. Why does the woman possessed by an internal demon lover dance the frenetic dance of the Red Shoes? Can one emerge from the dark side of creativity?