Psychoanalysis generally follows Plato in believing that the artist’s psychopathology or ‘madness’ is intense and intractable, ‘inspiring’ him or her to art yet making for a damaged life. But psychoanalysis is not alone here; many people follow Plato in this view. This preconception has led to the psychoanalytic correlation of art and madness, a correlation with profound implications yet also a great potential for shallow misuse. Psychoanalysis often seems to suggest that art does not so much overcome madness as intricately reflect it, and that the artist has a more intimate, aware experience of madness than any other human type, apart from the outright mad.
