Ego and Creativity

Responding to a magazine question: "What kills creativity?" - actress Gillian Anderson replied succinctly, "Ego."

One sense of this word "ego" is a distorted self-regard, what psychologist Carl Jung referred to as "inflated consciousness... hypnotized by itself."

Many people recognize the need to modulate this kind of ego in order to facilitate the creative process. And there are other, more internal and subtle aspects of consciousness that help create the more external kinds of "ego" behavior, and that may interfere with access to creative awareness.

We have powerful tendencies to set up judgments about others, ourselves and the reality we live in, that limit creative expression. As actress Madlyn Rhue noted, "The mistake we all make is in thinking that certain standards exist and that we must meet these standards in order to establish our place in the universal hierarchy. But hierarchies in artistic expression are not valid nor universal; they're personal." [from book "Actors as Artists"].

Creativity teacher and writer Julia Cameron has commented, "We tend to think, or at least fear, that creative dreams are egotistical... This thinking must be undone." [from "The Artist's Way"]

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