Eric Maisel is an internationally known exert on the creative process, a workshop leader, a psychotherapist, and a creativity coach. He observes that creative individuals regularly suffer from bouts of depression, referring to a study by psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig who found that 77 percent of poets, 54 percent of fiction writers, 50 percent of visual artists, and 46 percent of composers had battled at least one significant depressive episode. In his work of helping artists from all walks of life, Maisel has found that antidepressant drugs are not the only answer.
Loss of meaning and doubts about life's meaning are the root causes of depression in many creative individuals. Maisel looks at the lives of Vincent Van Gogh and many others and sees them as meaning casualties. They faced, as all artists do, the challenge of making meaning in their life plan, their work, and the ways they spend their time.
Another cause of depression is negative feelings about ourselves and the world in which we live. Depression can be dealt with when we opt to matter, reckon with the facts of existence, brave anxiety, nurture self-support, eschew addiction, confront narcissism, and repair the self. Making meaning is what creative people yearn for and this inspiring work leads them along this path. Be sure to check out Maisel's 60 Terms for a Vocabulary of Meaning at the back of the book.
