Alcohol and Depression: Many gifted people look into a mental abyss. Is this the curse of fame? At the first glance, it seems like that. At the second, the spotlight is just what you need to survive. The interest of others is what lets you exist. Not the fame drives you crazy. It’s the other way around.
Many of them have been long depressed, addicted, suicidal. And the nagging feeling of lack, the struggle for recognition drive them to mastery – in the hope of healing. They become stars. And fame means being recognized, celebrated and loved. Attention means affirmation.
First comes the mental disorder, then the applause.
If you interview young actors today and ask them why they choose this job, you will hear one sentences again and again: “I was a shy kid. The first school theater role came, in which I could be someone else and not me, and I liked it. “
And so, it happens. Hiding behind roles may still help mentally unstable people at a young age, but can later become a curse. Because your own personality has already fallen by the wayside or your personality is still in the process of puberty. Fame does not make narcissistic, but they are above average number of narcissistic personalities who present themselves to the public. In short, first comes the mental disorder, then the applause.
Show business full of personality disorders
Do people with personality disorders perform the greatest performance because they simply shed the shackles of reality? It is not the delusion that produces genius. In distress, inner turmoil and melancholy, artistic talent can hardly develop in the long run.
Genius and madness– Trauma inhibits creativity
Many artists believe that if they are cured of their mental suffering, illness or trauma, they will lose their creativity. That’s a wrong and superstitious notion. The fact is that a trauma does not create creativity, it inhibits creativity. A trauma does not give access to experiences, it blocks experiences, with reflexive barriers of dissociation. Artists can creatively draw on a trauma, but their creative process has limited access to a wide range of wounds.
Therapeutic work with artists
With neopsychotherapeutic methods such as brainspotting, their range of creativity extends considerably. David Grand, psychotherapist and founder of brainspotting, describes his work with artists: “Creativity is exponential. The higher you get, the bigger the potential becomes. If you work on your depression and or on your anxiety, you increase your creative potential and you do not take it away.” Brainspotting allows you to work with actors on roles, with singers on the sound of their voice, with painters on blockades and expansion of her painting spectrum, without being an expert in all fields.
Lisa Tomaschek-Habrina, herself a former creative artist and experienced brainspotting worker, works with artists of all kinds. Info: l.tomaschek@esba.eu