creativity and research: how do they go together?...by encouraging a culture of dynamism,...
TRANSCRIPT
Creativity and Research: how do they go
together?
Kim Etherington
Emeritus Professor of Narrative and Life Story Research
University of Bristol, UK
What is creativity?
Creativity is almost impossible to define – can only be described
and recognised when we meet it.
However, there is general agreement that being creative is the
ability to generate new ideas and to use/juxtapose existing
ideas, methods or materials to create something new and
original.
It is an attitude, an openness to ideas and their implications.
Perhaps its easier to say what creativity is
NOT
Studies of creative people in 70s have shown that...
Creativity is not a talent – more a way of operating (Donald MacKinnon).
Nor is it an ability a person has or does not have.
Creative people do not need to be more intelligent than non-creative
people but they do have a facility to get into a particular space of
openness so that their natural creativity can function: they need an ability
to play with ideas, explore them
Hard thinking
• certain
• close down
• one right answer
• exact
• fast
• looking
• black and white
• analysis
• logic
• differences and categories
• rational
• precise
• serious
• familiar
• doubtful
• open up
• many right answers
• approximate
• slow
• waiting
• many shades of grey
• hunches
• intuition
• similarities and connections
• dreamlike
• diffuse
• playful
• new
Soft thinking
Open Mode
Conducive to Creativity
Able to loosen taken-for-
granted assumptions,
allowing us to be open to
new ideas.
Curious - under no
pressure.
Relaxed and playful - not
necessarily purposeful
Closed Mode
Not Conducive to Creativity
Purposeful - rather than
relaxed
Under pressure - in ‘work
mode’
Active - anxious to get lots
done
Impatient - no time for
humour
How to get into Open Mode
Space - quiet undisturbed space, removed from everyday tasks
Time - boundaried oasis of time and space
Confidence - to play and make mistakes
Humour - frees up spontaneity
Process in open mode
Keep mind gently resting against the topic in a friendly
but persistent way.
Keep bringing yourself back – as in meditation – until a
new and original thought emerges.
Play with other curious people who can help throw
original ideas around:
Open to their inner experiences, thoughts, sensations,
emotions; imagery and symbolic processes.
Interested in many things rather than single minded.
Naive fresh perception of a stranger in a foreign land – able to
bring together different kinds of knowledge and create new
ideas.
Aware of their environments, cultures, and contexts; may
experience the pull and disturbances of conflicting opposites.
Characteristics of creative people
‘The creation of something new is not accomplished by intellect
but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative
mind plays with the object it loves’.
Jung (cited in Hillman,p.63, 1992)
Training creative researchers
Encourage research students to engage in research that has
personal as well as professional meaning for them – that will
sustain their energy and interest.
Provide encouragement and opportunities for sharing e.g.
informal and formal groups; cross fertilisation of ideas from
different fields.
Include opportunities to develop a feeling for analogies, similes
and metaphors; opportunities for engaging in imaginative play;
training in retreating from the facts in order to see them in larger
perspective and in relation to the larger context.
‘The future of creative research begins with practitioner training and in
particular the vision of creativity incorporated into research training
modules....
By encouraging a culture of dynamism, collaboration and creativity,
practitioner-research based programmes have become attractive to well-
qualified mature practitioners, including many from widening participation
groups and both home and international students who may experience the
traditional ‘ivory tower’ as locking them out or creating a prison within
doctoral-level study’.
Ruth Caleb: Challenging the ivory tower. Collaboration and creativity in practitioner research in
Research Matters edited by Stephen Goss and Christine Stevens
‘These candidates can be alarmingly honest, transparent with
their feelings, sharing of their innermost processes, while
inquiring into your own. They will not play the more usual
conventional tutor-student game, but rather test you to the
degree they test themselves’ (p.32).
Simon du Plock and Paul Barber in Making Research Matter (2016):
‘En-courage-ment’
So it seems creativity requires courage (from students and
staff)!
• ...to question what is generally accepted
• ...to take things apart so something new can be constructed
• ...to think independently and originally
• ...to be open to experience from within and without
• ...to follow intuition as well as logic
• ...to imagine different possibilities and try to achieve them
• ...to stand separately from the mainstream and challenge
• ...the courage to be oneself
Making thoughts visible
Visualising ideas first and then verbalising them, often promotes
creative thinking.
Imagery allows us to add emotional elements to intellectual
understanding of what has been experienced; to balance the left
and right hemispheres of the brain.
Multifaceted patterns provided by rich, traditional stories
present left and right hemisphere information simultaneously.
Narrative approaches to working with
adult male survivors of childhood sexual
abuse
The clients’, the counsellors and the
researcher’s stories
Part Three
The Researcher’s Story