Chapter 9 - Illness and Transformation in the Creative Trance

Summary

Just as illness and difficulties punctuate our lives, so do times of healing and achievement. As an experience of recovery and renewal, healing through self-expression is a creative process and a triumph of the creative trance. It can bring the possibility of a new self, new work, and new aspects of existence. Illness influenced Itchiku Kubota to expand his designs of Japanese textiles and kimonos. Addressing both emotional and physical pain, healing with creativity can occur through the creative arts therapies and in individuals. By using her creativity in hopes of healing the world, Greta Thunberg healed her difficulties with speaking. Paradoxically, impairments may augment the creative trance by becoming a transforming illness, as in Ludwig van Beethoven’s increasing deafness that imparted greater power to his music. Even when a condition is terminal, and there is no cure, there can still be healing with an altered, yet profound form of creative trance.