ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a clinical case to show how one patient's omnipotent fantasies fueled both his creativity and drug use; he used the "magic" of drugs to deaden extreme psychological pain. His words revealed a stark contrast between feelings of powerlessness and depression and omnipotent fantasies – the yearnings to overcome his powerlessness – that struck him again and again as he recounted the week of his arrest and fantasies of repairing himself to move forward into the future. He described how, between the ages of four and six, he loved re-enacting the transformation from Clark Kent to Superman. His tone changed after bringing his mother into the picture. He grew up to be an avid reader and fiction writer, which put him on the path to becoming an English professor. He described memories of his mother "walking on eggshells" around her "angry alcoholic" husband at the time they separated.
