ABSTRACT
Both Dr. Phyllis Greenacre and Dr. Editha Sterba began their examinations of the highest activity of the human mind, creative imagination, by turning their attention to certain mental activities of childhood: the imaginative play of children and the fantasy of the imaginary companion. Psychoanalysis has dissolved a universal delusion, the myth of the paradise of childhood. Although E. L. Freud's original assumption that certain gross external events were the traumatizing factors was in error, the establishment of this fact that during early life the child is exposed to innumerable traumata has remained one of the great discoveries of analysis. A certain childlike quality in the psychological make-up of the paradigms of creative imagination, the geniuses of art and science, has been observed and has been remarked on by various speakers today. Creative personalities share with the rest of humanity all varieties of conflict and psychopathology. An expanded version of remarks made at a Panel on Childhood Experience and Creative Imagination.
