The Creative Self

The Creative Self: Beyond Individualism (Ruti & Newman) critiques neoliberal demands for perpetual self‑optimization and productivity, drawing on Donald Winnicott and Marion Milner to recover solitude, emptiness, and relational forms that enable creative living.

The authors interweave psychoanalytic theory with cultural critique to show how performance culture squelches creativity and how transitional spaces and non‑egoic experiences foster a livable self.

Written as a collaborative pair of essays, the book balances Ruti’s late reflections on mortality and lack with Newman’s Winnicottian readings of relationality and the true/false self.

It proposes resisting instrumentalized relating by revaluing solitude, negative capacity, and holding environments.

Geared to both scholarly and general readers, it offers theoretical and practical reflections for reclaiming psychic space beyond neoliberal demands.