Creativity: A State of Being

Abstract

Creativity, distinct from artistic talent, reveals a relevant role during early development on subsequent adult experiences of creative living in this study, providing an original contribution to the field of clinical psychology.  The formulations about the nature of creativity, in the sense applied to this research, was developed by Donald Winnicott, who was a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst. In this theoretical study, creativity considered as a state of being, arising out of trust and relaxation, was adopted to explore the human experience of feeling alive as a health factor of psyche-soma development, relating to a sense of self with themselves and with the other.  Engaging in a hermeneutic methodology, the relationship between primary creativity and psychological development was examined through depth psychological scholarship.  The psychoanalytic theoretical underpinning in this study was object relations theory, with a more specific focus on the work of Winnicott, particularly the concept of holding (starting from the mother-infant experience, evolving into evermore complex relationships), the facilitating environment, and potential space, with case illustrations.