Of Art and Science

Sex

Creative Writing & the Psyche: Words as Art Objects

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on October 15, 2020

A master poet freed me with one simple idea: Discard convention and explore your own impulses, he said. Invent your own art.

Fear

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Sabotaging Voice

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on September 30, 2020

The paradox: We write because we have something to say but fear of exposure often inhibits our message.

Unconscious

Creative Writing and the Psyche: The Writer's Voice

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on September 24, 2020

As critical as voice is to our art, few talk about it—what it is, how we "find" it, what interferes with or enhances it—this elusive thing we can’t make art without.

Friends

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Writer's Block and a Mentor

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on September 17, 2020

Writer’s block is terrifying. But you can grow as a writer without being destroyed emotionally.

Jealousy

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Envy

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on September 9, 2020

Envy and greed have been the most forbidden emotions I’ve battled with throughout my life.

Intelligence

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Conquering Self-Doubt

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on September 2, 2020

Learning to write was not easy until I began to see myself as an instrument — recording every thought or feeling in the language in which it arrived. My Rule:Don't erase/criticize

Depression

Creative Writing and the Psyche: Antidote to Depression

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on August 26, 2020

I needed to give myself over to something whole and alive — that was mine alone. Thus began my life with the possibility of poems. Therein lay my recovery.

Depression

Creative Writing and the Psyche: 2 Silences

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on August 19, 2020

Creative writing may be the most psychologically challenging of all the arts.

Anxiety

Art as a Path to Emotion

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on August 12, 2020

Involvement with art, one's own or another's, is emotionally and psychologically healing.

Trust

Who to Turn to When You Need to Talk

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on February 7, 2018

If you are one who trusts easily and quickly, consider the possibility that this may work against you rather than for you.

Anger

What Feelings Can Disguise

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on January 30, 2018

As long as feelings remain hidden, we're powerless to affect change in our lives/relationships.

Career

Identifying Your Feelings

Joan Cusack Handler Ph.D. on January 19, 2018

Feelings that are denied or dismissed do not disappear. Instead, they are intensified. Find out how to "take your emotional temperature" and make sense of what you feel.