Nineteen visual artists and eighteen actors were compared to twenty-one imaginative controls, matched for high levels of imaginative absorption, all subjects female. Creatives had mystical experiences significantly more frequently than controls. In particular, the visual artists reported having had significantly more current, positive altered states of consciousness (lucid and archetypal-mythological dreaming, out of body experiences, and waking mystical experiences). These findings, taken with the fact that the creatives did not show a significantly greater tendency toward psychopathology as indexed by the multiple measures of trauma and emotional conflict, suggest that contrary to the stereotype, creatives may not be driven by conflict so much as by intense and constructive states of consciousness. Most previous studies of productive creatives have used lower absorption controls, making it more difficult to locate specific factors that make imaginative subjects into productive artists and actors.
Styles of reminiscence used in life stories, rather than being outcomes of life review undertaken in old age, may be the characteristic ways in which individuals at particular levels of ego development, think about, relate to, and recount the stories of their lives. To investigate the contention that differences in the styles of reminiscence of older persons could be explained by their levels of ego development, seventy-five women residing in long term care facilities responded to the Washington University Sentence Completion Test and told the stories of their lives. A trend from higher to lower levels of ego development was associated with styles of reminiscence in the direction predicted. Women with Affirming styles had higher levels of ego development than women with the Negating and Despairing styles. Resilience seemed the most likely explanation for cases that did not fit predictions. Life stories are suggested for routine data gathering in long term care because they allow the essence of another person to be grasped and foster a different level of engagement than do conventional data gathering techniques.
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