The Creative Matrix: Anxiety and the Origin of Creativity by Andrew Brink (review)

162 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 Still, Race and Racism has its blemishes. First, its prose is often stiff. This is probably because it is intended for academic readers. However, nonacademic readers are also important. Second, its case studies are limited to AsianBCanadians. Third, its definition of >racism= as a >negative concept= is narrow, and some of its racial categories (e.g., >visible minorities=) questionable. Alternative, and broader definitions can be found in studies such as E. San Juan Jr=s Racial Formations/Critical Transformations (1992) and David Theo Goldberg=s Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning (1993). None of the problems noted above, however, diminishes the significance of the contributions made by the editors and essayists represented in Race and Racism to this subject. Indeed, they must be commended not only for eschewing the kind of giddy optimism and self-serving cynicism that provides Canada=s liberal intelligentsia with an alibi for avoiding the study of >race,= but also for their scholarship. (UZOMA ESONWANNE) Andrew Brink. The Creative Matrix: Anxiety and the Origin of Creativity. Volume 10 of The Reshaping of Psychoanalysis from Sigmund Freud to Ernest Becker Edited by Barry R. Arnold Peter Lang. viii, 222. US $50.95 Andrew Brink=s The Creative Matrix is a largely affirmative book that makes the case for the value and universality of human creativity. Brink asserts that creativity is a biologically programmed response to anxiety, which is in turn generated by developmental processes and traumatic interpersonal relations. As a product of inevitably >imperfect attachment,= creativity is open to everyone; it is, however, more evident in artists and writers. Brink=s claim is that while the attachment theory of John Bowlby and his colleagues is now widely studied, little has been said about the relationship between attachment theory and creativity. Brink writes, >Creativity is probably a late product of evolution and certainly underdeveloped, but its presence is a hopeful sign of emergent adaptive powers, a sort of natural selfmanagement of dissonant information.= HUMANITIES 163 Part 1 outlines Bowlby=s theory (and that of his colleagues) and argues that it is time to extend the theory into an account of creativity. Short chapters follow on the biology of regeneration and on the connection between regeneration and communication. While subscribing to a biologically grounded account of the human subject, Brink does not want to give all to the scientists: >Developmental and interpersonal research are underemphasized in an era of exciting advances in neurochemical and genetic research , but they are essential if creativity is to be understood and given its rightful place in human affairs.= Part 2 surveys the work of several psychoanalysts and pyschoanalytic thinkers (Freud, Rank, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Stokes, Milner, and Miller) with particular attention to questions of creativity and anxiety. Brink remarks on the extent to which these various thinkers anticipated the insights of attachment theory. The section concludes with praise for the work of Alice Miller. The final section of The Creative Matrix reviews psychiatric studies of the >mad poet= controversy (looking particularly at the work of Nancy C. Andreasen and Kay Jamison). While he regrets >the pathologizing, and to some degree dehumanizing, of creativity,= Brink comments, >their work should be welcomed.= This section also includes a brief chapter that maps the lives of the poets Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath onto the Cohen-Gibson hypothesis concerning the developmental origins of manic-depressive disorder: >While Robert Lowell=s life ... and art conform most closely to the Cohen-Gibson theory, those of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath are good matches. The creativity of each can scarcely be understood apart from formative life events, from anxiety over an abusive, weak, or absent father to an overcontrolling mother. Each poet exhausted his or her repertoire of adaptations, including that of poetic creativity, ending their lives violently.= The Creative Matrix concludes by asking compelling questions that might have been the central concerns of this study. How should we think about art that in no manifest way responds to anxiety? Is it >irrelevant= to make the case for the reparative function of art when so many artists and writers have led self-destructive lives? Introducing a curious and intriguing focus on...