Concentrating on humility, empathy, and rebirth, Sándor Ferenczi's compassionate psychology attunes itself to the fundamentals of the human condition. Unlike Freud, Ferenczi did not dismiss reports of abuse in childhood but listened in an effort to heal the wounds. Ferenczi's work with traumatized individuals reflected his nonhierarchical approach to the therapeutic relationship while his empathic method posits the transformation of the analyst as well as the client. Examined here as a metapsychology, Ferenczi's theory has correlates with modern scientific research and the philosophy of ancient civilizations. Because his psychology is congruent with aspects of linguistics; mathematics; chaos theory; catastrophe theory; Greek philosophy; Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist religious thought; humanistic psychology (especially client-centered therapy); initiation rituals; and shamanic practices, it demonstrates the universality of his ideas.
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.-Joseph Chilton PearceEach of us has an enormous reservoir of creativity within ourselves. It is part of being human and provides a means of knowing ourselves and our world in new ways. Revealing inner depths we never imagined, it builds strength through resilience, helps us cope with problems, and allows us to more fully reach our potential. One way we express our creativity is through visual art. The benefits can come through making or viewing art and are available to us whether or not we are artists.This chapter, which focuses on visual art, begins by highlighting our everyday creativity, a capacity that encompasses the wide range of original and meaningful activities in our lives (Richards, 1998). Although we may not be aware of it, we are constantly creative and this capacity is fundamental to our existence. We see how this extensive creative capacity can generate abilities in more than one domain by looking at artists with multiple talents in both Eastern and Western and traditions. This will show that everyday creativity can be a path to eminence. One way this occurs is through creative activity that begins or flourishes during illness. Starting as a distraction from pain, it turned from resilience to a career, and eventually led to fame for the French painter Henri Matisse, the American painter Albert Pinkham Ryder, and the Canadian painter Maud Lewis.
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