ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on three models that inspired her exploration of psychic growth fostered by creative activity in the analytic treatment of David and Rachel: the legacy of S. Freud; the work of Melanie Klein, further developed by Hanna Segal; and the contribution of post-Kleinians Marion Milner and Donald Winnicott. Freud was always fascinated by art. Strachey lists no fewer than twenty papers of Freud that deal directly or indirectly with the individual works of certain artists, as well as with general problems of artistic creativity. Winrticott criticises psychoanalytic aesthetics which, in his view, focus primarily on the art product and its content, rather than on the creative impulse. The models of creativity of Milner and Winnicott emphasise the role of creative and aesthetic experience in fostering psychic growth in both patient and analyst.
