In another outstanding post, Scott Barry Kaufman includes a wide range of material on creativity and mental health. Here is an excerpt:
In the movie Black Swan, the ballerina Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman) is asked by the director to “lose herself” in the role of the black swan in the ballet Swan Lake.
During the course of fully immersing herself in the role, she experiences visual hallucinations, lesbian sexual fantasies that she thinks are real, and paranoid delusions.
Many of the hallucinations involve images of her self, as she represents her self.
As Dr. Steve Lamberti notes, Nina experiences a number of risk factors that may have tipped her over the edge, especially if she already had a genetic vulnerability to psychosis (which it appears she had).
Lamberti is right. Nina Sayers does experience many risk factors, including the intense pressure of competition, a controlling mother, a fellow dancer who appears to be after her, and a flirtatious, aggresive director who encourages her to embrace her dark side and lose her self-control.
Add that in with a bit of ecstasy, and you have the recipe for psychosis.
As Nina drifts further and further away from reality, she is dipping deeper and deeper into her default network, unable to differentiate her self representations from actual others, and reality from fantasy.
She has become fragmented, losing touch with her protective mental functions.
From his post Black Swan, Creativity, and Artistic Expression at the Edge of Madness
~~~
See a number of related posts on TalentDevelop, in the Mental Health category, under the Psychology tab in the menu at the top.
In another outstanding post, Scott Barry Kaufman includes a wide range of material on creativity and mental health. Here is an excerpt:
During the course of fully immersing herself in the role, she experiences visual hallucinations, lesbian sexual fantasies that she thinks are real, and paranoid delusions.
Many of the hallucinations involve images of her self, as she represents her self.
As Dr. Steve Lamberti notes, Nina experiences a number of risk factors that may have tipped her over the edge, especially if she already had a genetic vulnerability to psychosis (which it appears she had).
Lamberti is right. Nina Sayers does experience many risk factors, including the intense pressure of competition, a controlling mother, a fellow dancer who appears to be after her, and a flirtatious, aggresive director who encourages her to embrace her dark side and lose her self-control.
Add that in with a bit of ecstasy, and you have the recipe for psychosis.
As Nina drifts further and further away from reality, she is dipping deeper and deeper into her default network, unable to differentiate her self representations from actual others, and reality from fantasy.
She has become fragmented, losing touch with her protective mental functions.
From his post Black Swan, Creativity, and Artistic Expression at the Edge of Madness
~~~
See a number of related posts on TalentDevelop, in the Mental Health category, under the Psychology tab in the menu at the top.