Depth psychotherapist Philip Ruddy discusses breaking down writer’s block through exploring the unconscious, Active Imagination, and courage.
By Brock Swinson.
Philip Ruddy
Philip Ruddy is a depth psychotherapist with a masters degree in Counseling Psychology, who also happens to have fifteen years’ experience working as a writer and producer. As such, he is well-equipped to understand the creative mind, and he works with writers, artists and performers to help them with creative blocks, anxiety, depression, and the unique stresses of the film and television industry.
Creative Screenwriting spoke with Philip about breaking down writer’s block through exploring the unconscious, Active Imagination, and courage.
Let’s start at the beginning with your background and perhaps an insider view of Depth Psychotherapy.
I have great respect and empathy for writers and artists. I was an English major at Berkeley and wrote a lot of short stories. My literary heroes were Ray Bradbury, Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Raymond Carver. That’s what I was weaned on and what I loved. After graduating, I moved to Los Angeles and got a dream job as a script analyst and creative executive for British Film Director Michael Apted. He did movies like Gorillas in the Mist and Coal Miner’s Daughter. For an English major, being hired to analyze text and work with writers was a dream come true.
