ABSTRACT
Joan was given a battery of tests. She rated 109 on the verbal scale, II3 on performance; her arithmetic score was very low. No evidence emerged ofhereditary factors in relation to mental illness. Speaking of her parents during an early interview, Joan said she did not believe they loved her "beyond the sort oflove one gives to something one owns". Later, her mother admitted having had difficulties nursing her from the beginning. Joan described her father as cold but intelligent. When he was told that his daughter had a remarkable artistic talent, he answered, "All what I got in her is a crazy artist, eh:"
She was asked during the testing period to draw a picture and she replied that she was an art student and so whatever she drew would be ''just art". Coming from someone in deep depression, this was a highly significant reply and the decision to attempt to treat her by psychotherapy hinged upon it. It meant she thought she had to justify her interest in art by always drawing pictures the world would call "artistic", but it meant also that she somehow knew better, that her real need was to use her gifts in her own way, as she must, according to her own nature, never minding whether the picture turned out to be "art" or not.
