ABSTRACT. Our biopsychosocial approach implies, for a start, that there is a personality-based connection between (domain-specific) creativity and psychopathology, the latter meeting the eye especially during intensive creative episodes and creative blocks. The questionnaires and the interviews we have applied to 81 writers show that the writers’ stress levels, although themselves domain-specific, are by far higher than in the general population. Age is not an issue in the intensive creative episodes (art-giving stress), but in the creative blocks (art-ruining stress) youth should not be expected to be an asset, our data showing that once getting into an impasse the early-career writer hardly comes back. pp. 3–14
Keywords: Romanian literature; psychopathology; personality traits; intense creative episodes; creative blocks; age