Abstract
Clinical account of two cases of increased creative maturity following accidental injuries. The first involved an eighteen year old man who fell flat on his back and was unable to breathe for half a minute. He later stood up without assistance. He refrained from speaking for one day and from grooming himself for three days. He soon resumed a congenial manner, and months later, friends observed an increasingly mature level of behavior. This increase was complimented by an increase of creativity in his fine art endeavors. His enhanced creativity continued for the duration of his life. The second case involved a nineteen year old woman who was thrown from a car during an accident without losing consciousness. The woman subsequently earned her Ph.D. and produced three biographies considered definitive in her field. She feels her enhanced creative faculty stems from the accident. The suggested mechanism, as in W. B. Cannon Wisdom of the Body, stems from the body's ability to marshall nervous and chemical resources for restoration. The dynamics of this mechanism differ from my previous report on Delayed Psychosomatic Responses, Life Sciences, v.4, pp.2047-56 (1965).
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Tislow, R. Enhancement Of Creative Maturity After An Accident. Neuropsychopharmacol 11, 287 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1380221
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1380221