Part 3: What do Scientists Say? (Neurobiology of Creative Blocks)

by Philip Ruddy, MA, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist

Below is Part 3 of my series of blog postings exploring research and  opinions on the roots and causes of creative blocks. Because each case is unique, working with a professional therapist with experience in these areas, may help you more quickly explore, comprehend, and with time, better manage or even transcend your own blocks.

Could there be a biological cause for creative blocks? Some scientists and psychologists think so. In The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain, author and neurologist Alice Weaver Flaherty (2004) theorizes that the source of writing and creativity lies within the cerebral cortex, and that writer’s block may be caused by a shift toward the fight-or-flight responses of the limbic system. She also noted that creativity appears to take place via an interaction between the frontal lobes, where imagination takes place, and the temporal lobes, where editing and evaluation occur. In her opinion,  successful creative output appears to be correlated more with drive than skill, and that depression and anxiety appear to decrease creativity.  

In a 2004 article, Joan Acocella, dance and book critic for The New Yorker, described a variety of prescription-based medications which have been prescribed by doctors to treat writer’s block, ranging from antidepressants like Prozac, to stimulants such as Ritalin. This follows the hypothesis that such blocks  may be linked to attention deficit disorder.  Any course of medical treatment should only be taken after reviewing risks and benefits with a medical doctor, however.

Although it is a common belief that the left hemisphere of the brain governs logic and reason, and the right hemisphere is the home of creativity, according to Scott Barry Kaufman (2013), a psychologist and science writer who studies intelligence and creativity, some neurobiologists have found that the entire brain is at work during the creative process. Kaufman identified the three major networks involved as the executive attention network, the imagination network, and the salience network, which operate together or individually, depending upon the creative task at hand. Neuropsychologist Rex Jung suggest that when one wishes to mute the inner critic and engage in free thinking or imagination, the executive attention network must be quieted and activation of the imagination and salience network increased. Studies on jazz musicians and rappers engaging in creative improvisation support this.  Flow isn't just an acquired skill, it's quite literally a state of mind. (Kaufman, 2013). 

Psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi (2008), author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, spent years researching the states that artists, musicians, athletes, and others enter when they are optimally immersed in their craft. He assigned a number of qualities to the state of being in flow, including intense and focused concentration, a merging of action and awareness, the loss of a sense of self, feelings of control, a sense of time being altered, and an experience of the activity in which one is engaged as being satisfying and rewarding. In his successful follow-up, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Csíkszentmihályi (2009) also offered a number of suggestions for increasing one’s personal creativity, which include cultivating curiosity, surprise, and openness; making time for reflection; pursuing joy; and embracing complexity, change, and innovation.

Wishing you courage and creativity!

Philip Ruddy, MA, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist

Philip Ruddy, MA, LMFT #10475 helps creative artists, writers, producers, directors, punks, comics, rockers and film / music professionals explore, manage and often transcend anxiety, depression, career / creative blocks, midlife transitions and relationship issues.  Call  (424) 354-3910 today for a free 20-minute consultation, and take the next step on your personal creative journey. 

Part 2: What Do Writers & Artists Say? (Battling Creative Blocks)

by Philip Ruddy, MA, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist

In my previous post, I offered a little background into the history of the term writer's block, as well as a small sample of some of the most famous writers and artists who struggled greatly with blocks - often, for years.  In this post, I will explore some treatments recommended by other writers, artists and psychological practitioners. 

So now you may ask, "What are the most effective treatments?"  The answer depends upon whom you ask. Journalist John Walsh (2008) flatly asserted, "Numerous therapies are recommended for block-sufferers: keep a notebook, write as though sending a letter to a friend, go to the gym, eat apples in the bath (Agatha Christie's recommendation for kick-starting the imagination) and start writing in the middle of your story. None has been proved to work. (para. 8) 

Existential psychologist Rollo May (1975), who authored the groundbreaking book, The Courage to Create, expressed greater empathy and hope for writers and artists, however. May maintained that committing a creative act is akin to defying death and that just as much courage is required to engage in the irrational, intuitive Dionysian world of the unconscious, as with the Apollonian landscape of structure and logic.

Writers Cameron (2002), Natalie Goldberg (1986, 1990), Anne Lamott (1995), Dennis Palumbo (2000), Keyes (2003), Jane Anne Staw (2003), and Alice Flaherty (2004) concurred, viewing writer’s block as a natural, even inevitable, part of the creative process and offering a number of potential remedies. "

Cameron (2002), in The Artist’s Way, her handbook for creative recovery, which has sold in the millions of copies, described the origins of her techniques as a creative writing instructor in the late 1970s:  "At the beginning and, for the most part, always, my students were chiefly blocked or injured artists—painters, poets, potters, writers, filmmakers, actors, and those who simply wished to be anything more creative in their personal lives. I kept things simple because they really were. Creativity is like crabgrass—it springs back with the simplest bit of care. (p. xv)"

Among Cameron’s suggested tools is the concept of “morning pages” (p. x)—a commitment to three uninterrupted pages of stream-of-consciousness writing daily in long-hand, to help writers transcend their inner critic. She encouraged, “Remember, there is a creative energy that wants to express itself through you. . . . Don’t judge the work or yourself. You can sort it out later” (p. xv).

In Writing Down the Bones, Goldberg (1986) offered more suggestions inspired by her daily practice of meditation, including maintaining a beginner’s mind; keeping one’s hand moving without worrying about editing, spelling, or punctuation; and abandoning logic and control. Goldberg also advocated timed writing exercises, inexpensive notebooks, fast-flowing pens, and the commandment to trust first thoughts. “First thoughts are also unencumbered by ego, by that method within us that tries to be in control,” she explained (p. 9).

In Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, writer Lamott (1995) stated, “There are few experiences as depressing as that anxious, barren state known as writer’s block, where you sit staring at your blank page like a cadaver” (p. 76). Her solution is to remind herself to live as if she is dying, “because the truth is we are all terminal on this bus” (p. 179). Writer John McPhee (2013) advised struggling writers to assemble a first draft of an assigned story about a bear as if it were a letter to their mother:

What do you do? You write, ‘Dear Mother.’ And then you tell your mother about the block, the frustration, the ineptitude, the despair. You insist that you are not cut out to do this kind of work. You whine. You whimper. You outline your problem, and you mention that the bear has a fifty-five-inch waist and a neck more than thirty inches around but could run nose-to-nose with Secretariat. You say the bear prefers to lie down and rest. The bear rests fourteen hours a day. And you go on like that as long as you can. And then you go back and delete the ‘Dear Mother’ and all the whimpering and whining, and just keep the bear. (para. 1) In Hollywood, where the ability to write or create on deadline can mean the difference between career success and failure, psychotherapists Phil Stutz and Barry Michels (2012) work with writers and other creative professionals using a number of original techniques influenced by Jung as well as the flow research of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2008). Stutz and Michels view the shadow, a realm of the psyche identified by Jung (1951/1968) as the storehouse of repressed psychic material and personality traits, as the true source of creative flow in life, business, and art (Goodyear, 2011). In their book The Tools, Stutz and Michels (2012) teach their clients to defeat anxiety and writer’s block by first embracing this shadow and fighting procrastination—the most common problem afflicting writers in their practice—by surrendering themselves to “the archetypal Father, Chronos” (Michels, as cited in Goodyear, 2011, para. 28).

Palumbo (2000), a Los Angeles-based screenwriter, novelist, and psychotherapist specializing in creative issues, advised struggling writers first to reframe their conception of the problem. He wrote, "From my perspective, a writer who invites all of who he or she is into the mix - who sits down to work engulfed in stuff, yet doesn’t give these thoughts and feelings a negative connotation, who in fact strives to accept and integrate whatever thoughts and feelings emerge—this writer has truly gotten out of his or her way. (p. 47)

This philosophy directly parallels singer-songwriter Sting’s (2014) own self-healing solution to the writer’s block that had plagued him for 8 years: "I thought well, you know, maybe my best work wasn’t about me. . . . Maybe my best work was when I started to brighten the voices of other people or put myself in someone else’s shoes or saw the world through their eyes. And that kind of empathy is eventually what broke this—writer’s block we’ll call it. Just by sort of stopping thinking about me, my ego, and who I am, and actually saying let’s give my voice to someone else. (para. 54)" 

The effect such changes in perspective can have on creativity may also be explained neurobiologically, and I will focus on this area, in the next post. 

Wishing you courage and creativity!

Philip Ruddy, MA, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist

Philip Ruddy, MA, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #89594, works in private practice under the supervision of Jennifer Bergman, LMFT #44775. He helps creative artists, writers, producers, directors, punks, comics, rockers and film / music professionals explore, manage and often transcend anxiety, depression, career / creative blocks, midlife transitions and relationship issues.  Call  (424) 354-3910 today for a free 15-minute consultation, and take the next step on your personal creative journey.