The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel

The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression Reviews

• 
  Sharon

  I have to say this right at the outset: I wish someone had handed this book to me years ago.
  
  Eric Maisel examines the link between creative people and depression, and comes to some very sensible conclusions about the reasons for it. He then proceeds to provide the reader with some pragmatic tools for managing depression that is not based in physiology (and is thus medically resistant).
  
  Maisel's work is revolutionary, because it considers the depth of feeling that creative minds experience without attempting to smother that depth. Instead, he talks about ways to harness that depth of feeling and apply it to non-creative and creative aspects of life alike.
  
  Highly recommended for the artistic soul who struggles.
• 
  Mercedes Yardley

  This is a dense, insightful book about creatives and depression. It's not something you can hurry through, but I found quite a few passages that made sense. While quite a lot of the advice inside is "Cheer yourself on and make yourself do it even though you're depressed," I felt it was delivered with kindness and compassion.
• 
  Jennifer

  Eric Maisel notes that for creative types, depression can take on qualities and circumstances not seen in other sufferers. He focuses on the existential elements of depression for creative people, and suggests that a way through the pain is to focus on making meaning with art, and meaningful choices in life. While I do struggle with some aspects of the existentialist view, Maisel's main idea here is one I find helpful.
• 
  Leigh Anne

  A psychologist/creativity coach outlines a plan for artists and other creatives who are stuck in a blue period.
  
  While acknolwedging that depression has roots in biological causes, various traumas, and poor self-care habits, Maisel argues that for the creative person, depression is a question of meaning...specifically, the lack thereof. How do you go about creating meaning? Well, by practicing your art. How do you motivate yourself to do that when you're down in the dumps? That's the trickier part, and most of the book revolves around ways you can lift yourself up out of the muck for five seconds to get started doing something, ANYthing. Rather than a list of "things to do," however, Maisel provides you with a lot of "things to think about," which may or may not be helpful if you are the kind of person who just wants "THE answer."
  
  The answer, of course, is that you MAKE the answer. Maisel argues that it's every person's responsibility to create their own meaning of life. It's hard work, and it sucks, but unless you want to be miserable all the damn time, you have to do it. Other topics discussed include addictions, narcisissm, and--interestingly--the difference between meaning-making when you believe in some sort of higher reality/god, as opposed to when you don't, and how the tactics differ. There's a glossary of "meaning terms" in the back, which offer new ways of looking at your current situation, and a notes section that contains many interesting titles for further reading, if you're so inclined.
  
  So, basically, see a therapist, take your meds (if prescribed), eat right, sleep well, move your body, etc. But for pity's sake, get up off your butt and make art. He's a lot nicer about it than I am, but the overall message is the same: just do it. All this talk of meaning is not going to appeal to everybody, but it will hit a nerve--and possibly do some good--for those who already inhabit an existential mindset.
• 
  Tami

  We all know the story of the brilliant yet tortured Van Gogh. His mind blowing creativity was only matched by bouts of deeply destructive depression. We've also become accustomed to hearing gossip about rock stars, artists, actors, and writers whose drug use, alcoholism, or suicide make the evening news. It seems the pairing of creativity and self destruction is a natural one.
  
  The Van Gogh Blues doesn't seek to break this stereotype. Instead, it looks to examine the reason why creative people tend to have such extreme highs and lows. The answer seems so obvious that most of us probably would never have thought of it.
  
  People who create tend to put all of their effort into their work. I do it myself, I can sit for hours and just type fully immersed in my own words and thoughts. Having such clarity of focus and such a single minded drive is fantastic.
  
  However, once the project is complete, the creating is done. Suddenly, there is no more purpose. The individual is suddenly lost without any sort of direction. I can relate. I always know it's time to get back to my writing when I start to get depressed. Over time, I've learned that I have to a project. I have to create.
• 
  Gabriel Clarke

  Was it a helpful book? Yes, very. Is it a *good* book? Not entirely. Would I recommend it to other writers-in-crisis? Yes - but is tell them to be prepared to be very irritated with Dr Maisel at times. There's a hard core of evidence that's missing. Too much depends on testimonies of other "creative coaches" with a clear investment on affirming Maisel's ideas. At its worse, he devotes pages to the hagiographies written by people who read the books manuscript, all if whom declare how marvellous the book is and what an impact it's had on them. But I can't deny that all too much of it rings true and that I've acquired a number of useful tools for thinking about meaning and the lack of it in my life and work.
  
  So, four stars for utility but through slightly gritted teeth.
• 
  Cyd Madsen

  A remarkable book I bought by mistake. There was a time when I wanted to know everything possible about color theory, so I went on an Amazon shopping spreed, ordering every book that seemed remotely connected to color. Boy, as I ever in for a surprise. This book has nothing to do with color, but everything to do with mood.

  It's tempting to believe his theory that virtually every artist will go through a period of profound depression (they can see the ideal but never achieve it), but equally tempting to debunk the romantic notion of the artist as tortured. But in the spirit of creative exploration, the author gives the reader plenty to think about, try on for size, and either accept or reject, or take whatever bits and pieces they can and integrate it into their own understanding of self. I enjoyed the book and found it helpful.
  
• 
  Lorna

  I related to this book but I expected more from it. The stories are familiar to me. I was looking for answers as usual in this type of book. There are no easy answers just experiences to learn from. I do agree with the author in his premise that creative types do have meaning crises that can exacerbate depression. What I didn't find in the book was a true direction on how to find the meaning that we are looking for. A plan of action to overcome the fear that creative pursuits instill in us who are easily drowned in the blues of life looking for meaning in a day to day life that must involve creativity to overcome the day to day boredom that can overcome us.
• 
  モーリー

  I've read this book twice now. It contains some hugely helpful perspective and advice for life and creating meaning, but is also hugely insulting to those who are suffering from mental illness. It smacks of "just pull yourself out of it" and presents depression as something that can be desirable or useful, and that it can not just allow for but even stimulate creativity. I can't disagree with this more having had the experience. In any case, I feel the premise of the book is flawed but it still contains valuable information once you can get past Maisel's perspective on mental illness.
• 
  Alyssa Greatbanks

  It probably would have been a very helpful book, but it offered a lot of solutions and very little help as to how you can come to those solutions, it mostly just said "you need to figure it out on your own." And that's not very helpful. If the reader could figure out the problem on their own, they wouldn't need the book.
• 
  Todd

  Eric Maisel is that rare breed of therapist writing in the self-help genre, he understands the existential pain of living. Several years ago his book, “The Atheist’s Way” helped me to articulate in plain words what had previously eluded me. It sent me on a journey of self discovery that I hadn’t thought possible since coming to grips with my non-belief and rejection of supernatural enthusiasms. Today, The Van Gogh Blues is helping me enter the second stage of this journey.
  
  I will be reading, rereading, underlining, highlighting and generally tattering this book to pieces as I work at infusing my creative projects with the meaning that I have decided for myself. Maisel provides no easy answers, guarantees or solutions in the Van Gogh Blues. He just helps us to consider new ways of dealing with the facts of existence when the hammer away at our attempts to create meaning in our lives. He guides us to infusing our language with new vocabulary of meaning making.
  
  This work is deceptively simple and if you don’t plan to spend time wrestling with the ideas presented you may find yourself disappointed. This is no step by step guide that promises you success beyond your wildest dreams if you but just follow the plan. When Maisel speaks of authenticity he is speaking of the process of wrestling with depression, the facts of existence and the anxiety we have over our creative endeavors.
  
  He understands that creating is the only thing that gives meaning to our lives. Creating is life for those who must wrestle with meaning in a world that would have us roll boulders endlessly up steep hills, only to watch them roll back down to the bottom.
  
  
• 
  Tara

  This book was very influential and helpful to me when I was struggling through a depression and wanted to create something (poetry) but for a long time felt that I couldn't. I couldn't understand my block nor my depressed feelings and how they were related. I thought Maisel's viewpoint was a helpful addition to traditional psychotherapy--my therapist was good about talking about family dynamics, self-worth, and all of that...but she couldn't help me much when it came to a writer's life. I like to know the whys and hows of things, so this was another perspective from which to view my life and my experiences. I won't say it lifted me out of my depression, but I can say it helped me through it and made me feel, well, comforted and understood. I'll return to it again one day.
• 
  Lilla

  Eric Maisel does a marvelous job of showing how a creative person’s depression is not the same as a typical case of clinical depression (something I myself have believed for quite some time). I have been writing poetry since my pre-teens, using it as an outlet for all the emotions and feelings that I go through and yes, I have been depressed numerous times in my short life. Creative people are sensitive people, we feel things on a much, much deeper level than average persons. The Van Gogh Blues is a groundbreaking catalyst offering various exercises and contemplations to bring true and profound healing and understanding into your life, and I tip my hat to Eric Maisel.
• 
  Deale Hutton

  Very useful for artists of all ilks. Discussion of depression peculiar to artists. Eric Maisel has written many books for creative people, and I recommend him esp if you need help with the mood swings and depression that appears to follow us. The book has useful tasks for artist blocks, but what I liked was his discussion of the 'whys' of artistic depression
• 
  Lori Koshork

  Wonderful, wonderful book about working with artists in a therapy setting. Maisel gives great insight to non-artist therapists into ways of working more effectively with artists. And teaches non-artists about the process that goes on for artists before any physical work is created. This is a book I will read again, and again, and again.
• 
  Tristy

  Another book that changed my life. Maisel is a true visionary and creative healer. He helped me deeply understand my creative impulses and the darkness of my depression and how the two are inherently linked. I'm a much happier artist after reading this book!
• 
  Eric Gitonga

  Great book. It gave me insights about why I am the way I am as a creative. Having read it, I now better understand myself and can work at my art well, knowing what pitfalls to avoid and what paths to follow. Highly recommended.
• 
  Kate

  I'm not currently suffering from depression, but went through a serious depression in my 30's. So many friends were raving about this book, and I read it because I was curious if there was anything that could shed more light on what happened in my 30's. I had a psychiatrist that worked with me, no meds.
  
  I found the book's language problematic. He has married himself to a theory and like most people with theories he has stuck to it and made it fit. He has catch phrases I liked, but if I followed one of them they unraveled in my experience.
  
  I will give an example of what I don't like about the book. When my husband died, I was given a stack 18-inches high of grief books (I'm a reader.) I the 20 or so books, only one as very good, a Rabbi (if someone has to know this I may be able to find it.) He had experienced grief, and did not give the banal answers or suggestions so many did, completely inappropriate to a newly grieving widow/er. Books that helped considerably, and I reread one of them several times like an old friend, were "Land Circle" by Linda Hasslestrom, where she shared her grief about George. Or a more stilted writer that finally let his hair down, Ken Wilber, " Grace & Grit: Spirituality & Healing in the Life & Death of Treya Killam Wilber." In both instances, creative people and thinkers wrote from their own experience, and that is where the juice was!
  
  As a recovering addict, I did not resonate with MOST of what he said about addiction.
  Artists need community, but a supportive community, camaraderie, not a yakking analysis of their work. I have shared my studio with one artist and it was bliss. She was also quietly creating; we listened to music... made dinner together... talked at the end of the evening about other things, including the mystery of life. They need to understand they will live in mystery. They need a spiritual path. For me the spiritual path was Buddhism, with a wide interest in several other traditions, but for some it is the outdoors. They need to get exercise -- hike or walk in places that are interesting to them, that wander. They need to understand less about what their art is about (in fact, I need to not think about it at all, but to follow my creative urge without thinking.) They need to hold it close and not take advice from others during their creative processes (I don't mean questions about materials.) They need to read books that share the mystery first hand, and stop the analysis.
  
  That isn't to say that a real live good therapist sitting in front of you that has not experienced your issues can't dig deep and understand you; I don't think Maisel is much more than a creative coach, with less understanding of deeper SOUL issues.
  
  And BTW, MOST artists are not seriously mentally ill, as Van Gogh was -- I wasn't, though I was in a deep depression for nine months, and it was hell. Van Gogh did not have the blues.
  
  I recommend " The Creative Fire: Myths and Stories on the Cycles of Creativity" by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. I recommend getting your hands on the tape she did (same name) because she spoke to the must, and how to handle muses. I recommend reading writers who write about creative processes not for others, but as an autobiographical statement. It is like breaking bread with them. May Sarton, Stephen King (his book on his process), Henry Miller, Kathleen Norris, Natalie Goldberg ("Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America" -- though her books on writing are gems, especially her first.)
• 
  Madly Jane

  I am finally finished and I loved this; for one thing, I had many of the books listed as sources and I often referred to them as I read this book. so it was a four month project. It's about creative people who suffer from depression and how we deal, how we fail, and what the hell we are really doing. Yes, some days, I think sitting in the corner of a room, writing a long novel is just insanity.
  
  Well, we are all making meaning. In fact, everyone on this planet is making meaning in some way, coping, surviving. One can do it badly and one can do it with intent, and well, the artist can do it with their art and their life.
  
  TO focus on this idea of making meaning and for it to have personal and spiritual value, Maisel has followed a single thesis, that if we (as in artists) do not make meaning, we suffer, and he has legitimately proved that thesis. Are some of us going to need Prozac, yes. Are some of us going to need therapy, yes. Are some of us going to fall into a meaning crisis and deep depression, yes.
  
  But let's be honest and clear. When you name something, you feel you can have power over it. The entire Internet right now is about naming our trauma and feeling powerful by doing that. I consider this book essential for any creative person who gets depressed, even if they need medication. This book is a powerful little tool to keep near your desk and remind you that making meaning, struggling through art can heal you and make your life better. That your life does matter. That your art does matter. That you are making serious meaning.
  
  And yes, even if the entire notion of making meaning is an illusion. this works. As someone who has invested many hours in cognitive behavior therapy, this book makes sense. Because real change is about action, it's about feeling uncomfortable and moving forward at the same time. It's about choosing to act. It's also about awareness, asking questions, and making the deep commitment to your work as an artist. So yes, maybe we are all a little neurotic here. Maybe we do feel deeply. Maybe we do get up in the morning and struggle over our cup of coffee or tea and wonder why we are here and what the hell we are doing. And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I think if you don't that do that, you are clueless.
  
  I folded down a page because I wanted to go back and read it. "Our tangle of meanings is often our tangle of motives." Our predicaments in life really shape our motives and our choices. And sometimes we are not in control. We go out and make art to pay the bills, to feel better about ourselves, to keep from boredom, to feel less shame, to get a date (laughing), and on it goes. We get lost in that, because it's how life works. And then we feel the grind and we fall into disappointments and maybe into deep depressions and out of that we might have new motives and make bad choices. We never know.
  
  The jest of this is being aware and knowing ourselves and asking questions and focusing on making meaning, and then letting the other stuff take second place. We have to try, struggle though it may be at times, to keep our intent first. Because art is not just a quick thing. It's a way of living. It's a journey.
  
  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Read it all the way through. Look at his sources. Look at the vocabulary at the back. Good luck.
• 
  Rachel

  An interesting read for sure. I didn’t agree with absolutely everything Maisel said, but I definitely think he raised some poignant arguments. There were some Insightful takes regarding the explanation and combatting of depression, specifically within creative individuals.
  
  I enjoyed the extracts and anecdotes from various prominent creators (letters and journals, etc.) paired with Commentary from Maisel.
  
  I feel however that the discussion about mental health in this novel wasn’t necessarily subjective to creative people; I think it’s a very relevant topic for most people in contemporary society who will at some point struggle with things like ‘meaning’ and self image.
  
  Furthermore, none of Maisel’s arguments were rooted in biological or scientific study, however he did outline that he very purposefully made that decision. I feel that with this book it’s imperative that it is approached with individualism and each point is challenged.
  
  I’ve certainly taken some good things from this novel, Maisel offered up some helpful and productive suggestions on combatting anxiety, challenging thought processes and embarking on Journeys of ‘great heroism’ when dealing with the challenges of existentialism.
  
  Holistically, A worthwhile read.
• 
  Katie

  This is probably the only book I've ever taken notes in while reading. As I plan on holding on to my copy and referring to it whenever I'm facing a depressive cycle, I think that's okay!
  
  I found The Van Gogh Blues to be incredibly helpful in explaining some of my own moods and why they happen. Maisel clearly outlines potential triggers, toxic behavior, and solutions for managing depression. While the focus is on creative people, the solutions would work well for anyone who struggles with depression. And I really appreciated that Maisel didn't make it seem like therapy or medication were unnecessary for managing depression. He goes out of his way to specify that his methods might work for some people, but others might need to pursue other solutions (such as meds) too, and that's okay.
  
  Would recommend to anyone who, like me, often experience low periods and might not completely understand why it's happening. This book really helped me to look more clearly at my mindset and approach to my creative work and depression.
• 
  Jordan Ferreira

  A special resource for the artistic soul. This book lays the foundation that a vast percentage of what is understood as 'depression' as it relates to the contemporary artist is actually existential in nature & not rooted in biochemical deficiencies.
  
  Modern artists burden themselves psychologically with expectations of critical & commercial acclaim, & when this expectation is not reached they find themselves feeling anesthetized & abandoned by the culture of which they crave the acceptance of.
  
  This book offers an alternative mindset that has profoundly helped me in managing my own artistic expectations & truly finding more meaning in my life. I recommend it for any artist in any medium who feels stuck.
• 
  Qurratulain

  The first few chapters really resonated with me and my current situation. However, I did start to lose interest during the second half of the book. I don't know how I would have felt if I had read this during a different time, but the book provided the exact guidance that I needed right now. I would recommend it to any depressed-creative.
• 
  Paulina Lucy

  interesting perspective on sense making attitude and how luck of meaning may cause depression
• 
  Madhur Ahuja

  Must read for creative person.
• 
  AJ

  I expected more.