POST # 177: HOW TO BE HAPPY: (lead a creative life)

Projection 4’x3’

Projection 6’x6’

In the car the other day, I accidentally tuned into a Ted Talk on the value of a “creative life.”  The speaker (didn’t get his name) was talking about two psychologists who were familiar to me: Abraham Maslow, a founder of the Family Therapy movement who died about fifty years ago along with a present-day disciple of his, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, creator of something known as ‘Flow Theory’. It turns out that many of MC’s ideas came from Maslow. My late husband, a PhD Clinical Psychologist, was a follower of Maslow, considering his family therapy techniques to be far more helpful in “curing” neurosis than Freud or Jung or any of the dwellers in the unconscious. Want to be psychologically healthy? You need to find something creative you enjoy doing and do it!

Since I tuned in late to the interview, I only caught the tail end of the discussion on the therapeutic value of creativity.  Both Maslow and MC (and my husband) believed in its “curative” powers. Sam had great success with patients, accustomed to having therapists who probed their unconscious and listened endlessly (at great cost and to no avail) to their neurotic complaints. He focused on his client’s healthy parts, not his or her neurosis. If the patient liked to write or play an instrument (whether he was good at it or not) he or she soon learned that that was what Sam wanted to hear about. He didn’t want their same old neurotic complaints. Therapy sessions became joyful and positive and within a short period of time, change in the “kvetcher” (Yiddish for complainer) was obvious to everyone. Maslow called it “Self Actualization” and MC referred to “The Flow.”

Projection 8’x6’

When Sam caught me whining (yes, I occasionally whine) he would open the studio door, put his hands on my shoulders and shove me inside, slamming the door behind me. “I know what you are doing! You’re just trying to distract me,” I would yell. But after a few minutes in the studio I would notice something that needed my attention: a painting on canvas, a large charcoal drawing.  Within fifteen or twenty minutes, my mood lifted and I would begin to dance around the studio, brush in hand. Life was good. It didn’t make problems go away; it just put them in perspective.

Projection 7’x4’

Maslow believed that what he called “Self Actualization” was critical to human happiness and suppressing the creative part of ourselves was what makes us neurotic. Doing what you love, writing, playing music, performing has a deep therapeutic effect. My husband’s mantra was: “Activity binds anxiety and Creative Activity makes it go away altogether.” So, take out your crayons or your fiddle and get to work  (and read some Maslow or Csikszentmihaly’s Flow Theory if you want to understand why.) 

Renee Kahn (now off to her studio to create)