The Writer and Psychoanalysis Quotes

“Writers are fortunate in that they are able to treat their neurosis every day by writing and as soon as the writer is blocked—this is catastrophic because the writer will start to go to pieces.”
― Edmund Bergler, The Writer and Psychoanalysis

“Many a person cannot bear the thought of being completely controlled by the unconscious.”
― Edmund Bergler, The Writer and Psychoanalysis

“To give a precise formulation of the difference between the productive and sterile writer: the unproductive, neurotically inhibited writer exhausts his psychic energy in the creation of his unconscious alibi of the defense mechanism of pseudo aggression ("I refuse") while at the same time he still retains the unconscious masochistic wish to be refused. The productive writer, experiences the same conflict, solves it by eliminating, intrapsychically, the mother: I, myself, autharchically, give ideas and words (milk). The successful writer sets a "magic gesture" into motion: he dramatizes, unconsciously, how he allegedly wanted to be treated—kindly, and receiving.”
― Edmund Bergler, The Writer and Psychoanalysis

“When the writer cannot convince his Super-Ego of the "harmlessness" of his imagination, he has no ideas at all. If however, he clears that hurdle but cannot obtain approval of his (harmless) exhibitionism in "writing it down," he cannot write.”
― Edmund Bergler, The Writer and Psychoanalysis

“To prove the (rather scurrile) point, the writer acts both roles—that of the giving mother and the recipient child—on his own person. He gives to himself, out of himself, beautiful words and ideas, thus establishing an autarchy. That "magic gesture," acted on oneself, showing how the neurotic child in the writer allegedly wanted to be treated—kindly and lovingly—presents in the adult an unconscious tendentious alibi and is specific for the artist. Whereas the typical neurotic needs two people (himself and an object) for unconscious re-enactment of an infantile fantasy, the writer combines both roles into one.”
― Edmund Bergler, The Writer and Psychoanalysis