I saw some quotes from and references to Storr’s books while reading A Beautiful Mind. I was intrigued by them, so I ordered a couple of his books.

Storr’s analysis does not give a clear answer or mechanism on the process of creativity (is it possible?). He starts by debunking the simplistic Freudian view that the creativity comes from unsatisfied sexual drives. He goes on to show various examples of psycho-pathological characteristics (e.g., schizoid, bipolar, etc.) that can be found in some historical creative people (both artistic and scientific). He also shows the existence and the amount of these neurotic tendencies seem to vary between different people.

I think it was his point when he comes, toward the end, to the existence of the discrepancies between the inner world and the outer “reality” that get formed within (almost) everyone. He seems to (as far as I can understand) close the book by saying that the creative processes come from trying to resolve these inner conflicts held within (it was interesting that I had a related thought).

Anyway, what he presented in this book is not a formulated description of one of the most hard-to-grasp (but fundamental) aspects of humanity, nor does he try to. It was more of an exploratory analysis on the most fascinating part of being a human. His writing isn’t the best I’ve seen nor his arguments earth-shattering (but then I have been already influenced by this 1976 book), but still it was an interesting reading.