Psychology of Edvard Munch

Edvard had a difficult time dealing with life’s tragedies. He often isolated himself from family and friends during childhood and adolescence, and continued this pattern through his adult life. He avoided interactions and forming close relationships with others. His only love relationship ended with a gun blast that blew off two of his fingers. As an adult artist, he painted reoccurring themes of his childhood nightmares and torment; however, he rarely attended any of his art exhibits. He saw life as dreadful and took no pleasure in activities. At age 42, Edvard sought treatment for his anguish at many health spas.

I chose to write about the life of Edvard Munch because I found not only his professional work intriguing but also his personal existence most fascinating. Here was a young man that faced unspeakable heartbreaks as a child and endured them through his artistic therapy. I say he endured them because I believe he never fully dealt with the problem of intrusive thoughts of his childhood. Although Edvard's childhood home was culturally invigorating, his compositions repeatedly reverted back to the painful childhood memories of illness, psychosis, death and grief. They were saturated with dark sexuality and morbid death. However, I wonder without these dreadful childhood experiences, in what style and fashion would his artistic talents have surfaced? Would we only be able to appreciate the essence of his later work? Strong colors, striving for harmony, Mother Nature's beauty. Munch brought to light what many people were not ready to see and admit existed, to some extent, within each of them: fear, loneliness, paranoia, sadness.

His never-ending self-induced loneliness might have brought life to his paintings but brought an inner sadness to his life. While his work was greatly acclaimed by it, it was a detriment to his personal relationships. In other words, the way he adapted his cognitive and emotional states to his work actually, for art’s sake, improved its function; however, these same mental states were maladaptive to the functioning of his daily personal life.

The DSM-IV criteria for social phobia generalized type, occasionally called social anxiety disorder, is extremely and painful shyness in almost all social situations. (Barlow, Durarnd 1999 p136) Because Munch felt an overwhelming since of being critically judged by his peers, he could not bring himself to attend many of his own art exhibits. His shyness extended within his ow

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