My new client sat slumped in his chair, face drawn and tired. "I’m here because...well, dammit, nothing’s coming...Not a page, not a line...I’m totally blocked!"

I nodded sympathetically. But it took everything I had not to extend my hand and say, "Congratulations!"

Let me explain. Prior to becoming a therapist, I spent almost twenty years as a screenwriter. I know all too well the maddening frustration of writer’s block: I’ve endured the sleepless nights, the emotional and intellectual fatigue, the insidious undermining of creative confidence.

If someone had tried to tell me then that all this was good news for my writing, I’d have decked him.

And yet, in a way, someone did. I was on assignment from a major studio---an adaptation of a difficult novel, and trying to make it work as a linear screen story was twisting me in knots. Page after page, scene after scene, and nothing seemed right. I felt an old familiar feeling: like I was banging my head against a wall.

And then I had a very particular, very vivid dream. (Given how disturbed my sleep was at the time, I’m amazed I hit REM long enough to have one, but I did.) In this dream, I stood in a broad field while an old-fashioned biplane buzzed me from the air. The novel’s (very famous) author was leaning out of the plane, gesturing toward the rope ladder that swung from beneath it. He yelled for me to grab the end; all I had to do was jump up and reach for it, but my feet were planted in the ground. All I kept thinking was, I can’t reach, it’s too high, I can’t...

When I woke up, I knew immediately why I was stuck on the screenplay.

I had so much respect for the author, I felt unworthy to adapt his novel. As long as I felt this way, I couldn’t do what I needed to do---which was, discard much of the middle of the book, and totally remake the material for the screen. Which would make it mine.

The problem, I realized, wasn’t with the story. The problem was my relationship with myself as a writer. Who did I think I was, anyway? That seemed to be the question.

As I struggled to answer it, a funny thing happened with the script. The words started coming again...

That was many years ago, but I never forgot it. Since then I’ve worked with literally hundreds of writers struggling with writer’s block, and I’ve begun to conceptualize it differently.

For one thing, there’s the semantic problem. Calling it a "block" invites writers to "break through" or "over-come" something---something obviously negative---that’s impeding the forward momentum of the writing. But if our first impulse upon encountering something is to break through it, we forfeit the opportunity to examine it, to find out what, in fact, it is.

In other words, maybe we should stop banging our heads against the wall long enough to see if it really is a wall.

What if, instead, "writer’s block" is a sign-post, a harbinger of an impending transition or passage (kind of like the monolith that keeps appearing in 2001: A Space Odyssey)? If we think of our writing skill as a fluid, dynamic thing that grows in subtlety and depth as we gain in experience and self-trust, isn’t it possible that what feels like a block is instead the balled-up tension presaging another growth spurt?

Imagine it like this: You, the writer, stand on one plateau, staring across a chasm at another plateau at a slightly higher elevation. You want to make that creative leap to the next plateau, but your fears and doubts hold you back. No longer satisfied on the lower plateau, but not quite able to make the jump to the next, you’re frozen in mid-leap, in the tension between where you’ve been and where you’re going.

What exists in that tension---old beliefs, self-concepts, past writing experiences, etc.---is what needs to be explored and understood. For example, perhaps you’re afraid to discover, if you were to complete your writing project, that you’re not as gifted as you’d hoped. And that this would confirm your life-long fear that your goals will always exceed your talent. Some perceived inadequacy or defect might be revealed, exposing you to shameful self-recrimination. Is it any wonder, in the face of such fears (conscious or otherwise), you’d stay frozen on that lower plateau?

Thinking about it this way, you might be able to see the block for what it is: a self-protective mechanism, one probably "installed" in your childhood, that’s continuing on in your adult life. The same risks of self-exposure, of shame and potential humiliation, that might have been present in your early years may well re-emerge as you try to write. And that same defense mechanism you learned as a child---shutting down emotionally, suppressing your natural creative expansiveness---will also re-emerge. Only you’ll call it writer’s block.

Here’s another example, from my private practice: I once had a novelist client whose block, when we finally were able to understand it, had a very specific function:

throughout his childhood, my client’s Socialist father raged against all authority figures, the "big shots" who kept the little guy down. Now, as a writer whose work was slowly bringing him some recognition, my client had feelings of anxiety and dread; at a level below his conscious awareness, some part of him felt he would betray his late father’s ideals by becoming too successful, by becoming a "big shot," one of those men for whom his father had nothing but contempt. For this writer, being blocked was a way to forestall this; if he couldn’t finish his work, he wouldn’t become rich and famous, thus severing a deeply-felt tie with his beloved father.

Invariably, once a writer fully experiences and integrates the lessons a block has to teach, his or her work deepens in richness, emotional truth and, often, personal relevancy. Moreover, the next time such a block appears, the tools are available to explore it, understand it, and work through it until the writing starts flowing again. And another plateau has been reached.

So give yourself a break. You can get there from here, not despite your writer’s block, but because of it. It means you’re ready---or, probably, more than ready---to make that important next step in your writing.

And that sounds like good news to me.