The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person's Path Through Depression

Dr. Eric Maisel, an internationally known expert on the creative process and best-selling author, has developed a four-step plan for engaging this type of depression and moving past it. Using examples of famous creators like Vincent van Gogh and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and not-so-famous creators who have struggled with this kind of depression, he shows that despite the difficulty, creative people hold the ability to forge relationships, repair themselves, and create meaning in an utterly unique and powerful way. Dr. Maisel's approach legitimizes creative people's own instinctual beliefs that standard treatments are not the answer.

Vincent van Gogh, the icon of the tortured artist, cut off his own ear and spun out of control in his depression. Would he have benefited from Prozac or Zoloft? Possibly. Are all creative people--designers, writers, engineers, architects, dancers, others who seek to find meaning in their work--destined to end up like van Gogh? Not at all.

Men and women who seek to create meaning through their work are heroes in many ways. They have opted to matter. They lay their work as a veneer on top of the forces of meaninglessness and chaos, making them vulnerable to a unique kind of depression that often is not physiological and does not respond to pharmaceutical treatments.

The source of this depression is embedded in the creative process itself. Creative people often get depressed when they are unable to create or when their creative efforts fall short of their hopes--even when they create successfully, they can get depressed due to a lingering sense that their work only temporarily disguises life's apparent meaninglessness.

In order to counter this kind of depression, Dr. Eric Maisel says creators must become meaning experts, learning to navigate through the terrain of meaning. They must engage in a conversation with themselves about what is meaningful--and then work a plan to create that meaning. The Van Gogh Blues contains all the information one needs to have this conversation and create a personalized meaning plan.

The great news is that this can lead to liberation from depression, truly a self-created map out of depression. Despite the fact that we have no choice but to experience pain and suffering while being alive, we can choose to make sense of our time here, take it seriously, and stick to our plan to create the meaning we seek. We can force life to mean.

Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is an internationally known expert on the creative process, a creativity coach, psychotherapist, and best-selling author. His other books include Living the Writer's Life, The Creativity Book, and Sleep Thinking. He lives near San Francisco.

Creative people will experience depression—that’s a given. It’s a given because they are regularly confronted by doubts about the meaningfulness of their efforts. Theirs is a kind of depression that does not respond to pharmaceutical treatment. What’s required is healing in the realm of meaning.

In this groundbreaking book, Eric Maisel teaches creative people how to handle these recurrent crises of meaning and how to successfully manage the anxieties of the creative process. Using examples both from the lives of famous creators such as van Gogh and from his own creativity coaching practice, Maisel explains that despite their inevitable difficulties, creative people possess the ability to forge relationships, repair themselves, and find meaning in their work and their lives. Maisel presents a step-by-step plan to help creative people handle their special brand of depression and rediscover the reasons they are driven to create in the first place.

Publishers Weekly

The assertion that creative people are especially vulnerable to depression certainly isn't surprising, and Maisel (The Creativity Book) knows it. But it's not that they're genetically prone to psychological disorders, he says-it's that they feel depressed because they're "caught up in a struggle to make life seem more meaningful." The author of several small press novels during his younger years, Maisel now identifies himself as a creativity coach, and here seeks to offer artistic types a "plan for managing creator's depression." This isn't a simple how-to: his somewhat scholarly, philosophical style can make it difficult to translate analysis into necessary action. But given that creative types are inclined to enjoy the abstract, they just might benefit from this work, as well as enjoy learning about aspects of their personalities that they may not have previously identified or understood. Maisel explores the creative's sometimes disheartening quest for meaning, and he suggests possible solutions to the personality weaknesses creative people are also prone to, such as narcissism, addictions and critical thinking about themselves. Although at times insufficiently specific-how exactly can we learn to "brave" anxiety?-Maisel's book has helpful suggestions for artists and writers searching for encouragement and emotional respite. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is an internationally known expert on the creative process, a creativity coach, psychotherapist, and best-selling author. His other books include Living the Writer's Life, The Creativity Book, and Sleep Thinking. He lives near San Francisco.