BY MARIA KONNIKOVA
Writer’s block has probably existed since the invention of writing, but the term itself was first introduced into the academic literature in the nineteen-forties, by a psychiatrist named Edmund Bergler. 可能自从有写作以来，写作障碍就一直存在，但是“写作障碍”这个词首次出现在学术文献中是在19世纪40年代，由精神病学家埃德蒙·伯格勒首次使用。For two decades, Bergler studied writers who suffered from “neurotic inhibitions of productivity,” in an attempt to determine why they were unable to create—and what, if anything, could be done about it.二十年来，伯格勒研究了多名饱受“创作神经压抑症”的作家，试图发现为什么他们不能创作——以及是什么导致他们不能创作(如果有的话)。 After conducting multiple interviews and spending years with writers suffering from creative problems, he discarded some of the theories that were popular at the time. 进行了许多访谈和花费数年跟受创意问题折磨的作家在一起之后，他摒弃了许多当时颇为流行的理论。Blocked writers didn’t “drain themselves dry” by exhausting their supply of inspiration. Nor did they suffer from a lack of external motivation (the “landlord” theory, according to which writing stops the moment the rent is paid). They didn’t lack talent, they weren’t “plain lazy,” and they weren’t simply bored. So what were they?写不出东西的作家不通过用尽他们的灵感把自己吸干。他们也不被缺少外在动机而困扰(“房东”理论，房租一交写作就停止。)他们不缺少天赋，他们也不懒，他们也不无趣。所以究竟是什么让他们写不出东西？
In a 1950 paper called “Does Writer’s Block Exist?,” published in American Imago, a journal founded by Freud in 1939, Bergler argued that a writer is like a psychoanalyst.在一篇1950年名叫《作家障碍存在吗？》的论文(出版于American Imago，一份弗洛伊德于1939年创办的期刊) 中，伯格勒论证道作家就像神经分析学家。He “unconsciously tries to solve his inner problems via the sublimatory medium of writing.” 他“无意识地试图通过升华式的写作突途径捷径他内心的问题。”A blocked writer is actually blocked psychologically—and the way to “unblock” that writer is through therapy. 一个被阻碍的作家其实是心理上被阻碍了—解决阻碍的方法是通过心理治疗。Solve the personal psychological problem and you remove the blockage.解决了心理问题也就清理了障碍物。 This line of thinking is fine, as far as it goes, but it’s frustratingly vague and full of assumptions.这个思路是好的，至少就它实践的情况看，可是它非常令人沮丧地模糊和充满了假设。 How do you know that writers are using their writing as a means of sublimation? 你怎么知道作家把他们的写作当作一种升华的方式？How do you know that all problems stem from a blocked psyche?你怎么知道所有问题都来自被阻碍的心智？ And what is a blocked psyche, anyway?被阻碍的心智究竟又是什么？
As it turns out, though, Bergler’s thinking wasn’t far off the mark.然而，结果证实，伯格勒的猜想不是完全离谱的。 In the nineteen-seventies and eighties, the Yale University psychologists Jerome Singer and Michael Barrios tried to gain a more empirically grounded understanding of what it meant to be creatively blocked.19世纪70和80年代，耶鲁大学的两位心理学家杰洛米·辛格和麦克·巴里奥试图得到一个关于创造性阻碍究竟是什么的以经验为依据的坚实的理解。 They recruited a diverse group of writers—fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, print, stage, and screen—some of whom were blocked and some of whom were fine.他们招募了一组多样化的作者——虚构与非虚构，诗歌与散文，纸媒作者、舞台剧作者、编剧——有些人是被阻碍的，有些人则不。 The blocked writers had to fit a set of pre-determined criteria: they had to present objective proof of their lack of writing progress (affirming, for example, that they had made no progress on their main project) and attest to a subjective feeling of being unable to write.被阻碍的作者们必须符合一组预先定好的标准:他们必须指出他们写作缺少进展的客观证据(比如，他们的主要作品必须没有进展)并且证实无法写作的真实主观感受。The symptoms had to have lasted for at least three months.这些症状必须已经持续了至少三个月。
Barrios and Singer followed the writers’ progress for a month, interviewing them and asking them to complete close to sixty different psychological tests.巴里奥和辛格对这些作者的进展追踪调查了一个月，采访他们要求他们完成了将近60分不同的心理测试。 They found, unsurprisingly, that blocked writers were unhappy.他们发现，不出所料地，这些被阻碍的作者是不快乐的。 Symptoms of depression and anxiety, including increased self-criticism and reduced excitement and pride at work, were elevated in the blocked group; symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, such as repetition, self-doubt, procrastination, and perfectionism, also appeared, as did feelings of helplessness and “aversion to solitude”—a major problem, since writing usually requires time alone.抑郁和焦虑的症状，包括增加的自我怀疑和对工作减少的兴奋的骄傲，在被阻碍的人群中是比较高的；强迫症的政治，如重复，怀疑自己，拖延和完美主义，也出现了，还有无助感和“极度厌恶独处”——这是个大问题，因为写作通常要求独处。
TAKEAWAYS
academic literature 文献资料
off the mark 不准确
attest to 证实
obsessive compulsive disorder 强迫症
aversion 极度厌恶