Creativity and Deadness. Going Beyond the Binary Division between True and False Self

Abstract

In this article, I describe my work with a patient who presented as a creative individual, yet felt like a fictional character. He was driven by a compulsion to maintain and repair broken connections at any cost, utilising his creativity for this purpose. My work with this patient, among others, allowed me to identify a group of patients who feel forced to constantly integrate and transform their external environment. I call them bricoleurs and explain the difference between bricolage and Donald Winnicott's play and Hanna Segal's reparation. I propose that the emergence of this psychological structure is caused by the child's early experiences with significant objects—the childhood necessity to constantly repair and enliven the disturbed mind of the caregiver. One of the metaphors of the article is that of the machine, through which I aim to illustrate the automated internal world of the bricoleur, generated not only by the compulsion to destroy but also by the compulsion to repair and create. In the article, I highlight that working with such patients requires the analyst to carefully examine countertransference and to fully mourn the illusion created in the analytic process. I also reflect on the categories of true and false self, pondering the possibility of moving beyond the binary nature of this division.