Writer’s block is just a self-imposed limitation. It’s not even real. Some people don’t know how easy it is to maneuver around a specific problem that probably already has over a thousand solutions. When talking about a certain topic for example basketball, there is almost an inexhaustible amount of information that can be discussed if you expand your horizons. Writer’s block happens when your perceptions are too narrow, but your options will open up once your mind does. As Edmund Bergler said, there is a lot of different types of ‘writer’s block’. You have the “No Talent Theory of Writer’s Block”, the “The Publisher’s Block”, also the “Plain-Laziness”, etc. Writer’s block does not really exist. It’s just a term used when people believe that they wrote everything possible to write about a topic. When that’s actually false. It is very rare when someone has spoken or written about a topic to the point where there absolutely nothing left to talk about.
Edmund Bergler is an American Psychoanalyst born in Ukraine. He has written a lot of articles and books that garnered a considerable reputation. He was known for his theories in homosexuality back in the 1950s. The books he wrote varied from Mid-Life Crisis to Loveless marriages to his book about if writer’s block even exists. When talking about writer’s block, Edmund mentioned how many different types of writer’s block there is. As said in the previous paragraph, Bergler spoke about different types of writer’s block. Not only does he believe that writer’s block is not just a rare thing, but he also believes that it is a neurotic disease. “Naive contemporaries, however, have been violently denying the very existence of “such a thing. There are, in general, ten fallacious arguments which are brought forward, either singly or in combination, by the negators of ‘writer’s block.’” (Bergler 1). In Edmund’s article, he described the ten fallacious arguments proving as to why and how writer’s block is not necessarily a real problem it is more a trick of the writer’s mentality.
For example, a research paper about basketball could focus on a number of points. You have the who’s greatest of all time debate, or the how to become a better basketball player ted talk, or you could also have the who’s the greatest player by the position of all time conversation. There is really an exceptional amount of information that can be spoken on, on the topic of basketball and its sub-categories. Bergler brings up the point that writer’s block can often be confused for just plain-laziness. It is not that the information is not there but the fact that the author is just too lazy to put the necessary effort in when it comes to doing his/her work. “What he attempted to do, in effect, was to “supplement” my account of the unconscious reasons for “writer’s block” with the theory that a writer who doesn’t write is just “plain lazy.”” (Bergler, 46). When I was younger, I would keep making excuses when it came to writing papers. I would say that I’m trying to come up with an idea or I would think the paper would be easy and end up doing it last minute. When in reality I would just be plain lazy as Bergler said because I didn’t have the motivation to actually get up and get the necessary work done.
Geoffrey V. Carter, the author of Writer’s Block Just Happens To People believes that writer’s block is a common issue that people struggle with, including the greatest writers that have ever lived. “Whenever someone trying to write says that they are suffering from writer’s block, the first word that comes to my mind could be misunderstood as uncharitable: slacker.” (Carter, 99). Carter believes that while everyone sufferer’s writer’s block, he believes that if a writer is struggling they would be considered as a slacker or just plain lazy. Writer’s can be considered slackers because they don’t have the strength to hunker down and do the work. They can just sit there and pass time giving other things priority over their responsibilities. Lots of students are guilty of this. I used to be one of those students, trying to push my responsibilities on either somebody else or to the point where I barely have enough time to do it on my own. Lots of students do this and in the end, they use “writer’s block” as an excuse for not having anything on their paper.
Dennis Upper, the author of The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of “Writer’s Block” makes a compelling case that writers can either be a real thing or just plain laziness because other writers can and have made their cases on it. He even plays devil’s advocate when he was showing what happens when you let it go untreated. While it is a satirical take on the problem, it also lends itself to the students who submit blank work. Recently, writing a paper for my amazing professor, I had “writer’s block” when in reality I just wanted to go play basketball some with friends thinking the assignment was going to write itself.
To sum up, writer’s block is not necessarily a real thing. It is just a self-imposed limitation. Geoffrey V. Carter believes that writer’s block is a common issue that people struggle with every day when writing something. Edmund Bergler believes that writer’s block is actually a neurotic disease but there are compelling cases that writer’s block is not real and people just get lazy because it is technically impossible for somebody to writer everything possible about a certain topic. When writing about basketball, there is an utmost amount of information on that topic. I believe that writer’s block is not a real thing and I approve this message.
Work Cited
Carter V.Geoffrey, WRITER’S BLOCK JUST HAPPENS TO PEOPLE, (2017),Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bergler Edmund, The Writer, and Psychoanalysis, (1950),New York: Doubleday & Co
Bergler Edmund, DOES “WRITER’S BLOCK” EXIST?, (1950), American Imago, Vol. 7, The Johns Hopkins University Press
Upper Dennis,THE UNSUCCESSFUL SELF-TREATMENT OF A CASE OF “WRITER’S BLOCK, (1974),JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS,VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HOSPITAL, BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS