Creative personality in schizophreniform disorder.

This paper sets forth the contention that a schizophreniform disorder can enhance creativity. Given the usual brief duration of no more than six months, this disorder may enable the resilient ego of a creative person to descend temporarily into the symbolic sea of the unconscious. With such broadening of the person's symbolic experience in the unconscious, in the postpsychotic period the person may be able to forge symbols into novel concepts through a cohesive ego restored to homeostasis.