Der Doppelgänger, the Artist & Creative Will
In this presentation, Dr. Vanessa Sinclair will discuss concepts developed by Otto Rank, early psychoanalyst and student of Freud, specifically on Der Doppelgänger, the uncanny figure of the double, the role of art and the artist in society, and the essential nature of creative will. Rank viewed the development of the self, and even life itself, as a creative endeavor or work of art. Nowadays, we could say that our lives may be viewed as ongoing works of performance art. Rank felt neurosis stemmed from a stifling of our inherent creative potential, as we are unable to fully express ourselves creatively within the constraints and structures of modern society – another aspect of the discontents of civilization. Rank felt harnessing our creative will to be of the utmost importance for overall mental health and well-being. In fact later on after his break with Freud, Rank developed his own form of psychoanalytic treatment, which he referred to as “will psychology.”
To exemplify and elaborate upon Rank’s ideas, Dr. Sinclair will discuss the work of a series of artists who lived their lives as works of art, working with Der Doppelgänger, the double, mirroring, and the uncanny, providing an illustrated presentation of the works of Danish outsider artist Ovartaci, French surrealist Pierre Molinier, performance artists Breyer P-Orridge, and British multi-media artist Val Denham.
Speaker Bio
Vanessa Sinclair, Psy.D. is a psychoanalyst and artist based in Sweden, who works with people internationally. Dr. Sinclair hosts the award-winning podcast, Rendering Unconscious, and is the author of several books, including Things Happen (2024), Scansion in Psychoanalysis and Art: The Cut in Creation (2021), and Switching Mirrors (2016). She edits the book series Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, and is co-editor of The Fenris Wolf vol 11 (2022) with Carl Abrahamsson and The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond (2025) with Elisabeth Punzi and Myriam Sauer.
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