Through the life stories of women such as Camille Claudel, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Anne Sexton, Suzanne Farrell and others, and through clinical case studies, Susan Kavaler-Adler offers penetrating insights into the nature of the creative process. Kavaler-Adler contrasts unsuccessful psychological treatments with object-relations therapy that is able to resolve the pathological narcissism of creative addiction and allow the emergence of healthy modes of self-expression. This book will be of interest to anyone interested in the creative process and its psychological and psychoanalytic underpinnings.