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INTRODUCTION
 

If man is to become free, he must learn to develop his creativity.-W. A. Sadler, Jr.




Considering the individual differences among one's fellows with regard to most aspects of physique or personality, one is immediately struck with the fact that (a) the variance is real and (b) its magnitude is ordinarily measured in percentages. Henry may be 20 percent taller than Edward, 30 percent heavier than Jack, and 25 percent brighter than Clyde; but he is unlikely to be twice as tall, as heavy, or as bright as anyone else.

Surprisingly enough this situation does not hold in regard to creativity. On any kind of creative scale used (and creative production of adults is as reliable as any), some individuals are found whose creative production exceeds that of their fellows, not by percentages, or even simple magnitudes; but it is more likely ten, fifty, or a hundred times as great. Obviously these fortunately creative persons are not that much different. Something has happened to turn them on. Creativity is a "threshold" variable. The nature of what that "something" is-the analysis of that threshold-is the task of this book.

Before making this analysis, however, it seems wisest to make a selective search of the literature in regard to development and creativity in order to use

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some of the ideas and concepts of many others, including major assistance in development from Erikson and Piaget and in creativity from Kubie.

These topics will be taken in order, first proceeding to a search of the literature in regard to development.
 


THE LITERATURE OF DEVELOPMENT



Development is the noun of the verb "to develop" which among other ways is defined by the American College Dictionary as "to bring out the capabilities or possibilities of; to bring to a more advanced or effective state." It is this particular sense that will be pursued here.

In talking about human development, reference may be made to mankind as a species. Development then becomes akin to the forward thrust of evolution which has "developed man from lower form" and (for all we know) may be in the process of developing him into a higher form.

Another sense in which human development is used has to do with the change in the quality of the individual as he progresses through life. This does not mean growth which is change in quantity. A baby is not merely a small adult, and an adult is not usually a large infant. The state and significance of this qualitative change is extremely important.

First consider the literature on each of these species and individual aspects of development in order.

Species Development:

It was none other than Condorcet (1795) who said that Nature has set no limit to the perfecting of the human faculties; that the perfectability of man is truly indefinite; that the progress of this perfectability, henceforth independent of any power that might wish to arrest it, has no other limit than the duration of the globe on which Nature has placed us.

It is important for scientists to investigate the evolutionary process by which this development occurs. Since this book is not a treatise on biology, a full survey of these facts cannot be undertaken. However, certain aspects of biological theory will be singled out to have a bearing on later discussion.

Among other speculations, one type in particular has stood out as having considerable importance. It is the specifics of development from primate forms into true men.

It was the thesis of the Dutch biologist, Bolk (1926), that man represents the foetalization of the ape. Man does not develop the animal snout, the brow ridges or the heavy jaw. This has been accomplished by a lengthening of the immature period of one species to cover the entire life span of the new species. As a result, there is a great slowing down of various apelike growth processes and a corresponding increase in leachability and trainability of man during this lengthened immaturity and adolescence. This period may cover a third of man's life span, whereas in most animals it is a much smaller period. Even so large a mammal as the whale requires only two years to reach sexual maturity.

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To this same point Hardin (1961) states:

If there is one feature for which man is remarkable among the mammals, it is in his extraordinarily slow maturation. . . . If one compares the face of other mammals, one is struck with the fact that the protruding snout which develops at various degrees of lateness in other animals never develops in man. . . . More important . . . it is the delay in mental maturity in the young, or . . . the prolongation of the teachable period.

Bucke (1929) points out that human beings are just in the process of acquiring some traits or powers. He mentions color and musicality as recently acquired by the race, along with the smell of fragrances, and notes the paucity of descriptions of these in ancient writings. He states (1929)
Each of our mental faculties has its normal age for appearing in the individual. . . . The longer the race has been in possession of a given faculty the more universal that faculty. . . . The longer the race has been in possession of a given faculty the more firmly is that faculty fixed in each individual who possesses it.

To sum up: As ontology is nothing but philogeny in petto, the evolution of the individual is the evolution of the race in abridged form. . . . When a new faculty appears in a race it will be found at the very beginning in one individual; later it will be found in a few individuals; after a further time, in a larger percentage. . . . When a new faculty occurs it must appear in members who have reached full maturity. [pp. 45-52]

Individual Development

Consideration will be given much later in this volume to the concept of developmental stages, the central property of which are a series of discrete discontinuities, each having certain characteristics and appearing in a certain order. While this theory has been well enunciated by Erikson (1963) and Piaget (1950), it is important to realize that glimmers of the idea come from other earlier writers.

Emerson (1950) in his essay "The Oversoul" had this to say even a century ago:
The soul's advances are not made by gradations, such as can be represented by motion in a straight line, but rather by ascension of state, such as can be represented by metamorphosis. . . . The growth of genius is of a certain total character that does not advance the elect individual first over John, then Adam, then Richard . . . but by every throe of growth the man expands there where he works, passing at each pulsation classes, populations of men. [p. 130]
Escalona (1968) states that development reflects increasingly complex adaptation and feels that the alternation between arousal and quiescence stimulates that adaptation. [p. 5121 Kubie (1958) came close to the concept of developmental stages in a discussion of the maturation of symbolic processes, for he states that the course of creativity is from chaos to dream to analog to precise concept. [p. 261 This statement is reminiscent of the proverb, "A trace, a path, a lane, a highway."

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The difficulty of organizing adult developmental patterns for analytical purposes has been noted by several researchers. Kelly (1955) concluded that, despite the complexities of adult life, there were some valid stability correlations in his longitudinal study and that psychological growth during adulthood is a real possibility. Neugarten (1964), after a careful review of Eriksonian stage theory, did not find evidence of stage shifts by chronological age groups and sought alternative ways of conceptualization. Some, such as Anderson (1956), have embraced choice-point theory; others, such as Charlotte Buhler (1962), have postulated interacting but independent methods of coping which exist simultaneously in the adult, and one of which is dominant. These include:
(1) active undeveloped mode: need fulfillment;
(2) passive undeveloped mode: self-limiting adaptation;
(3) active developed mode: creative expansion; and
(4) passive developed mode: upholding internal order.
Buhler felt that with mental health in adulthood there was a shift toward the third mode, that of creative expansion.

Beggs (1967) has expanded the Buhler concept by adding choice-point theory and postulating that it is at natural choice points (such as a woman whose children are grown taking a new job) that "crossovers" of emphasis or dominance of one system over another changes under the impact of the meeting of the individual's life style and the new environment. Beggs calls this arena of action the "interface," for it is here that one develops different modes of coping. The choice points become the stimuli which escalate individuals into new developmental stages.

Among those who have offered theories of child development, Harry Stack Sullivan (1953) and Robert Sears (1957) should be mentioned prominently. Sullivan's theory, however, is mainly associated with the dynamisms of anxiety since his major preoccupation was with mental disease. Sears, by contrast, considered learning to be the basic force in personality development. A good deal of what Sullivan said is subsumed by Erikson, and what Sears said is subsumed by Piaget. A comparison of the three theories of Erikson, Piaget and Sears is afforded by Maier (1965). In this volume it seemed best to model the analysis on Erikson (1963) and Piaget (1950) as departure points.

It should be noted that Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of basic needs is also a developmental statement. In the original form there were eight stages in the hierarchy: physiological, safety, love, self-esteem, information, understanding, beauty, and self-actualization. These correspond rather well with the Eriksonian eight stages.

The Eriksonian and the Piagetian stages will not be displayed here since much will be made of them in later chapters. It can be pointed out at this time that there is remarkable agreement among the various authorities quoted on personal development. Specifically,
a. Development is different in quality from growth.

b. It consists of stages, in an invariant order.

c. Each stage has characteristic properties different from the rest.

d. The stages are discontinuous.

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e. Each stage is in some sense a summation of previous stages.

f. There is an element of escalation or enlargement.

g. There is general agreement as to the approximate age levels.

Sinott, the distinguished biologist, sums up these views on development when he tells us (Anderson, 1959, p. 16):

Development is not an aimless affair; each stage follows precisely upon its predecessor... Continual change is the keynote of this cycle; not unguided
change, but change that moves toward a very definite end....

Reich (1970) glimpses the Zeitgeist when he remarks: "What Consciousness III represents in the long-range terms of human evolution is the beginning of the development of new capacities in man."
 
 

THE LITERATURE OF CREATIVITY

Of all the powers of man, that of creativity seems unique. The generally accepted custom among the ancients was to ascribe divine origin, inspiration or direction to any great creative work so that the poet became the prophet. Even the aspects of initiation and selection, which are universally found in creative function, appear somewhat mysterious, and many of our greater artists and scientists seem to receive inspiration rather than to develop it.

To create, mind must withdraw upon itself for a time to focus its forces and then project an image of itself onto an external medium. Psychologically this introspection and focusing takes the form of heightened awareness of the peripheral asymmetries of a situation and a subtle settling into consciousness of concepts at the boundaries of rationality or in the preconscious. This is the incubation period in the famous Wallas explication of the four components of creative process: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification.

It is understandable then that the hour of creation is a "tender time" when man wishes to draw apart from his fellows, whether up the mountain, into the desert or away to his closet, but always into a solitary silence. Creative withdrawal and return, as Toynbee has pointed out, is a characteristic of creative acts of groups as well as of individuals.

Because creativity is a word which has recently been taken over by psychology from religion, it is almost impossible to discover it in a dictionary more than a decade old. It is still a new concept, recently attributed to the personality of man, and still to some fraught with mystical connotations. For this reason, care should be taken in defining it and in distinguishing it from other mental functions, as well as to note its possible varieties.1

Hallman (1963, pp. 18-19) gave a comprehensive definition:



'These three paragraphs have been adapted from pp. 66-68 of Gowan, J.C. and Demos, G.D. The Education and Guidance of the Ablest, Copyright 1964 by C. C. Thomas Co., Springfield, 111. Used by permission.

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.....the creative act can be analyzed into five major components:
(1) it is a whole act, a unitary instance of behavior;
(2) it terminates in the production of objects or of forms of living which are distinctive;
(3) it evolves out of certain mental processes;
(4) it co-varies with specific personality transformations, and
(5) it occurs within a particular kind of environment. A demonstration of the necessary features of each of these factors can employ both descriptive and logical procedures; it can refer to the relevance of empirical evidence, and can infer what grounds are logically necessary in order to explain certain facts.

Creativity, like leadership is better defined in terms of interactive process than in terms of trait theory. The creative process in superior adults usually results in creative and useful products. Hence, the creativity of such adults is judged in terms of quantity and quality of patents, theories, books, works of art or music and scientific hypotheses. In children, however, where the product may be original with the child but cannot be original with the culture, assessments of creativity usually depend on nominations of "which child had the most wild or silly ideas" to the more conventional Guilford or Torrance tests of divergent thinking on the child's part. It should be noted here that some researchers have pointed out the fact that there is as yet no proof that this kind of "creativity" on the part of the child will result in the more demonstrable creative production on the part of the adult. In addition, Guilford in particular objects to the term "creativity" as a confusing stereotype of many kinds of ability found in the structure of intellect model and prefers to regard it only as "productive thinking."

Another way of looking at the issues is to analyze the personality correlates or the environmental background which has produced creative adults. This is the method taken by many researchers; notably that of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) at Berkeley, the biographical of Taylor and the personality psychometrics of Cattell as seen on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. These methods yield clear results, indicating a particular kind of individual: intelligent, original, independent, open, intuitive, aesthetically sensitive, highly energetic, dominating, possessing a sense of humor and a sense of destiny, and at home with ambiguity and complexity.

Finally, two polar beliefs must be considered. The first is that creative problem solving is a mundane affair, such as knowing how to turn on the lights in a dark room because one knows where the switch is. This, the Osborn-Buffalo view, states that the techniques of creative problem solving can be taught to anyone as a rational and pragmatic affair. The other or psychedelic view holds that creativity is a dawning of the psychedelic powers of man which can transform him from a rational being into a super-rational one through the use of psychedelia, hypnosis, religious or meditational exercises, drugs, mysticism, and what have you. It is as far out as the other is conventional.

In this early analysis of creativity, no clues or theories should be neglected. If creativity were an easy matter, it would have been solved before now. In the



1This and subsequent quotes from "The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Creativity" are reprinted by permission of the author and The Journal of Humanistic Psychology 3:1, Spring 1963.

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following presentation the available literature is organized into five sections for analysis in terms of a rational-psychedelic continuum:
a. Cognitive, rational and semantic: problem-solving views of the Buffalo School, the Guilford structure of intellect, and others
b. Personality and environmental: child-rearing practices, personality correlates, especially originality, energy and high self-concept
c. Mental health: Rogerian, Maslovian, self-actualization, openness, etc.
d. Freudian and neo-Freudian: psychoanalytic, oedipal, pleasure, and preconscious
e. Psychedelic: existential, nonrational, cosmic consciousness, and psychedelic.

Creativity as Cognitive, Rational and Semantic

Attention may now be given to an extremely important group of researchers who have regarded creativity in the main as little else than problem solving. It is a form of rational thought which connects things, which combines parts into new wholes and which (like Sherlock Holmes) performs seeming miracles through observation, insight and meaningful analysis of semantic elements. Hallman (1963) calls this condition connectedness and says that it imposes on man
. . . the need to create by bringing already existing elements into a distinctive relation to each other. The essence of human creativeness is relational, and an analysis of its nature must refer to the connectedness of whatever elements enter into the creative relationship. The analysis must demonstrate that though man does not create the components, he can nevertheless produce new connections among them. It must prove that these connections are genuinely original and not simply mechanical. Logically, this means that connectedness comprises relationships which are neither symmetrical nor transitive; that is, the newly created connections as wholes are not equivalent to the parts being connected. Neither side of the equation validly implies the other, for the relationship is neither inferential nor causal; rather, it is metaphoric and transformational.
Hallman (1963) calls the roll of some of the writers who have called attention to this aspect of creative performance as follows: Bruner (1962) who states that creativity grows out of combinational activity; Taylor (1964) who points to new organizational patterns; Murray (Anderson, 1959, p. 96 ff.) who finds a compositional process; Ghiselin (1952) who abstracts a new constellation of meanings. Creativity has also been considered as resulting from particular types of logical thought. This was indeed the view of Osborn (1953) in Applied Imagination, and the problem-solving methods he espoused. These go back to Dewey (1910), Rossman (193 1) and Wallas (1926) and are found in the practice of the Buffalo Creative Problem-Solving Workshop which Osborn founded and which is carried on by his protege, Parries (Gowan, Demos and Torrance, 1967, pp. 32-43). Edwards (1968) has supplied us with a survey of creative problem-solving courses.

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Hallman (1963) again covers this ground admirably:

It is generally agreed that creative thought consists of certain integrating synthesizing functions; that it deals with relational forms rather than with individual instances; that it discovers new forms which can accommodate past experiences. It involves a real fusion of forms and not a mere juncturing.

But of all those who have looked at creativity from a rational, problemsolving point of view, certainly the most impressive are the factor analysts. Perhaps it was just the involved statistics that were overpowering; certainly these men, from Spearman through Kelley and Thurstone to Cattell and Guilford, have discussed the subject with an authority and precision scarcely found elsewhere.

It is interesting to note that, whereas now intelligence and creativity are subsumed under wider mental powers called "intellect," the early psychometricians subsumed creativity under intelligence and often tended to depreciate its alleged separate identity. This was true not only of the early unifactorists such as Binet and Terman, but often even of the first multifactorist, Spearman.

Few nowadays would agree with Spearman, who declared in Abilities of Man(193 1, p. 187):

"All creativeness or originality depends solely on eduction of correlates, and is therefore merely a manifestation of general intelligence; no special creative power exists." Although later exponents of such a view have included Thorndike (1966), the general feeling is that creativity and intelligence are different aspects of intellect, or at least are only moderately correlated.

While factor analysts did not discover creativity in the factors of intellect until Guilford's "Structure of Intellect," others were making earlier appraisals of creative process which separated it from intelligence. Some of these efforts tended to equate creativity with problem solving.

Dewey (1910) offered an initial attempt at a problem-solving model for creativity by suggesting the following steps:
(1) awareness that a problem exists,
(2) analysis of the problem,
(3) an understanding of the nature of the problem,
(4) suggestions for possible solutions, and
(5) testing the alternative solutions and accepting or rejecting them.

Wallas (1926) suggested a somewhat similar model, but with more attempt to account for preconscious aspects:
(1 ) preparation (assembling the information, a long rational process),
(2) incubation (temporary relaxation, play or turning the matter over to the preconscious),
(3) inspiration (a brief moment of insight), and
(4) evaluation (elaboration and testing of the completed process or product).

Rossman (193 1) noted that an inventor goes through a similar process and decided on seven steps:
(1) observed needs,
(2) formulation of problem,
(3) available information collected,
(4) solution formulated,
(5) solutions examined critically,
(6) new ideas formulated, and
(7) new ideas tested.

Guilford, whose approach has been followed by Gowan and Demos (196 7, pp. 193 ff.), asserts that similarities between these models indicate the strong connections between creativity and problem solving. He even regards the mention of incubation in the Wallas model as a "logical error" (1950).

Guilford's positivistic views on creativity (or as he calls it "productive thinking") as simply another cell in the structure of the intellectual model are

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well explicated in his classic The Nature of Human Intelligence (196 7) and are too well known to need further explanation here. Despite his other major contributions, Guilford is no developmentalist, and one does not find in his writings an awareness of developmental aspects of the subject, which are so much more prominent in the works of Piaget, Erikson and Rogers, for example. It was once thought that divergent production carried most of the structure of intellect variance making for creativity, although as early as 1963 (Aschner and Bish, 1965, pp. 5-20), Guilford was arguing for a more expanded view. Recently in a speech at the 1970 Buffalo Creative Problem-Solving Workshop, Guilford indicated that the importance of transformations in creative production has been generally underrated. The five abilities concerned with transformations had the highest average as compared with divergent production in some of his experiments. Even to understand facts, one must be able to transform one's concepts from old to new. Solving problems, therefore, may well depend upon changing one's concept of problems to opportunities-which is a matter of the cognition of semantic transformations. The cognition of semantic implications, or problem sensitivity, as well as the operations of evaluation are other neglected areas feeding into creative production. Transformations, however, are particularly involved when verbal analogies take place, particularly those which involve innovative complexity.

It might be particularly useful to look at the divergent production of semantic transformations (DMT) as being especially loaded with creative content. Appropriately enough, this cell in the structure of intellect is named "originality," namely the production of "effective surprise."

Creativity as Personal and Environmental

The trait and environment theories about creativity have long received considerable attention. There are three main areas of interest:
a. Creativity as a personality correlate, especially of originality, energy, humor and high self-concept

b. Creativity as a result of environment, especially parental rearing practice

c. Creativity as a concomitant of age and stage and other auxiliary variables.

Creativity as a personality correlate has received the main attention. Hallman (1963), in his definitive review, says:
For example, a large body of evidence has accumulated in connection with the effort to identify the particular personality traits which make for creativity. The assumption is that the creative process can be fully accounted for by providing an exhaustive list of such traits.... Fromm speaks of four traits: capacity to be puzzled, ability to concentrate, capacity to accept conflict, and willingness to be reborn every day (1959). Rogers has a similar list: openness to experience, internal locus of evaluation, and ability to toy with elements (1959). Maslow has perhaps the most extensive list (1962); the

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creative personality, he says, is spontaneous, expressive, effortless, innocent, unfrightened by the unknown or ambiguous, able to accept tentativeness and uncertainty, able to tolerate bipolarity, able to integrate opposites. The creative person is the healthy, self-actualizing person Maslow believes. Others who have identified creative traits are Barron (1963), Meier (1939), Whiting (1958), Angyal (1956), Mooney (1956), Lowenfeld (1958), and Hilgard (1959).

Some typical research results follow.

Hilgard says (Anderson, 1959, pp. 175-176):
1 wish to call attention to sonic immature or childlike qualities manifested among these creative people. Among these qualities I would list are
(1) dependency on others, with refusal to accept or carry out the ordinary social responsibilities of adult life,
(2) defiance of authority or conventions,
(3) a sense of omnipotence, or what Gough has called a sense of destiny, and
(4) gullibility, or uncritical acceptance in some intellectual sphere .... 1

Dinkmeyer and Caldwell (1970, p. 89) say, "The child is not only a tension-reducing being but creative as well as reactive. He is motivated by the desire for mastery and self-actualization." Helson (1967) in doctoral research found creative men differed in traits connected with high socioeconomic status, self-awareness, and professional participation. Flescher (Mooney and Razik, 1967) in a creativity-intelligence study with a small number of elementary children found three creativity factors in the ensuing matrix: (1) flexibility fluency, (2) fantasy expression and (3) originality.

Weisberg and Springer (Mooney and Razik, 1967) chose 50 of the most creative and gifted children out of 4000 in the Cincinnati schools and gave them tests and interviews. The five highest judgment categories (all significant at the 5 percent level) following the interview were
(1 ) strength of self-image,
(2) ease of early recall,
(3) humor,
(4) availability of oedipal anxiety and
(5) uneven ego development.

Welsh (1967) used an adjective check list on Governor's School students which indicated that high creative adolescents are independent, nonconforming individuals who have change and variety in environment and also have active heterosexual interests.

Whelan (1965) used a theoretical key of seven scales with the following correlations with creativity:
a. energy (r = .67): few illnesses, avid reader, early physical development, good grades, active in organizations
b. autonomy (r .60): values privacy, independent, early to leave home
c. confidence (r .68)
d. openness to new experience (r = .37)
e. preference for complexity (r = .13)



1From page 175-6, Hilgard, A. in Anderson, H. A. (Ed.) Creativity and Its Cultivation, Copyright 1959, Harper and Row Publishers. Used by permission.

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f. lack of close emotional ties (r .30)
g. permissive value structure (r = .67).

Hallman (1963, pp. 20-21) states:

Descriptively, the second criterion can be called the condition of originality ...This category specifies four qualities which any item must have if it is to exist as an ideographic, non-classifiable object, that is if it is to be genuinely original. These are novelty, unpredictability, uniqueness, and surprise...

First then, novelty means newness, freshness, inventiveness; it is universally recognized by writers in the field as an indispensable quality of originality.

Dellas and Gaier (1970) reviewed creativity research on five variables:
(1) intellectual factors,
(2) intelligence,
(3) personality,
(4) potential creativity and
(5) motivational characteristics.
Creative persons appear more distinguished by interests, attitudes and drives rather than high intelligence. Creativity seems to be a synergic effect involving cognitive style, openness and other personality variables.

Neither permissiveness, overindulgence, nor a great deal of love in the home appears to stimulate creative performance as had, in some quarters, been alleged; but a good deal of parental interaction with children, plus authoritative (not authoritarian) behavior on the part of the parents, appears helpful. The mixed results make it appear that parental rearing practices and other environmental influences are not central in producing creative persons, at least not so much so as individual personality dynamics. Some research results follow.
Hitschman (1956, p. 19), in a study of "great men," noted that:

Several subjects show a traumatic experience in early childhood as a possible source of their creativity. All were excessively day-dreamers. Many showed a certain bisexuality or femininity or at least some conflict in masculine/feminine identification. Their productivity can be compared to an act of childbirth.1

There have been a number of doctoral dissertations focusing on relationships between home environment and personality factors on the one hand and creativity on the other. Abdel-Salan (1963) found the male adolescent creative, self-sufficient, alternately lax and exacting and a trusting, adaptable, surgent, easy-going cyclotheme. Ellinger (1964) obtained a correlation of .6 between creativity and home environment for 450 fourth graders. Parents of creative children were more involved in activities, read more to children, went more often out to the library and used less physical punishment. Orinstein (1961), using the PARI, found maternal restrictiveness correlated .4 with low vocabulary, but neither permissiveness nor loving attitude correlated with creativity. Pankove (1966) found a positive relationship between creativity and risktaking boys.



1From page 19, Hirschman, E. Great Men, Copyright 1956, International Universities Press, New York. Used by permission.

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Arasteh (1968) concluded, after a careful survey of creativity in young children, that a loving, authoritative but somewhat permissive family structure was more productive of creative children than an autocratic or inflexible one.

Torrance (1969), in reporting intercultural research in which the author also participated (Gowan and Torrance, 1963), found strong relationships between cultural environment and creative index.

Research in which the author participated (Gowan and Torrance, 1965; Torrance, Gowan, Wu and Aliotti, 1970) indicates that in cross cultural studies of creative performance in children, strain is put upon the child with resultant reduction in creativity by bilingualism at home or school.

Coone (1968), in doctoral research under Torrance using a cross-cultural study, found the fourth grade drop in creativity confined to American culture.

Datta and Parloff (1967) attempted to determine the kind of family in which the creative individual is likely to develop. Previous studies indicated that the relevant dimension is autonomy control. Both creative scientists and their less creative controls described parents as moderately affectionate, nonrejecting and encouraging. The creatives were more likely to perceive parents as providing a "no rules" situation in which their integrity, autonomy and responsibility were taken for granted.

A third area, that of age and stage aspects of creativity, was also researched. The effects of age on creativity have been studied in superior adults by Botwinick (1967) and by Lehman (Botwinick, 1967; Lehman, 1953, 1960). Their findings generally agree that creativity is more often found in younger individuals, and that young men in their twenties are especially apt to be highly innovative in science. A somewhat later apex is found for the behavioral sciences, but the peak of creative performance seems passed by the age of forty. Similar results had been reported earlier by Bjorkstein (1946).
Hallman (1963) in his definitive review says:

Another body of data has been collected to prove that creativity can be fully explained as a series of chronological stages, each stage of which makes its unique contribution to the total process. Wallas (1926) provides the classical statement of this position, and he has been followed by Patrick (1937) and Spender (1946) in connections with creativeness in poetry; Hadamard (1954) and Poincare (1913) in mathematics; Arnold (1959), Patrick and Montmasson (1931) in science. Others who define creativity in terms of serial stages are Ghiselin (1952), Vinacke (1952) and Hutchinson (1949).

Solomon (1968), in doctoral research, found some rather complex relationships between creativity as measured by the Torrance tests and SES, but none between creativity and intelligence.

Among others who found high SES a factor in children's creativity was Saveca (1965) in a cross cultural study, and Feld (1968), who concluded after doctoral research that intelligence and age accounted for 30 percent of the variance in creativity scores, and personality factors for another 30 percent. Tibbets (1968) concluded-after doctoral research that, of socioeconomic status, race, sex, intelligence, age and grade point average in a heterogeneous group of adolescents, intelligence and race were the best predictors of creativity.

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Creativity as Mental Health and Openness

A large and prestigious group of researchers, including Jung (Arieti, 1967), Maslow (1954) and Rogers (1959) to name only three, associate creative functioning with a high degree of mental health, openness to experience, and antiauthoritarian influences and tendencies in the individual style of living. Maslow's classic chapter, "Self-Actualizing People: A Study of Psychological Health" (1954), contains in its title a strong affirmation of relationship; moreover the common qualities he finds in his survey include spontaneity, autonomy, democratic (antiauthoritarian) character structure, and of course, creativity. Rogers (1959), who equates the goals of psychotherapy with "openness to experience," "an internal locus of evaluation," and "ability to toy with concepts," believes these are the same conditions most associated with creativity within the individual. Schachtel (1959) speaks of the quality of the encounter which develops into creative performance as primarily one of openness.

Hallman (1963), in his thorough review, also names openness and says:

It designates those characteristics of the environment, both the inner and the outer, the personal and the social, which facilitates the creative person's moving from the actual state of affairs which he is in at a given time toward solutions which are only possible and as yet undetermined. These conditions, or traits, include sensitivity, tolerance of ambiguity, self-acceptance, and spontaneity. Since these are passively rather than actively engaged in the creative process, this criterion may be explained logically within the category of possibility. But again, the psychological meaning of this category may best be expressed under the concept of deferment, as distinguished, for example, from closure; of postponement as distinguished from predetermined solutions.

Schulman (1966) found openness of perception necessary for creative functioning.

Openness can be described in twelve aspects, all mentioned by Maslow (1954) as characteristic of his group of self- actualized people. The first four aspects are also noted by Hallman.

(1) Problem sensitivity refers to the ability to sense things as they might be reassembled, to a discrepancy, an aperture or a hiatus. It involves a particular kind of openness which divines that things are not quite what they seem. Hallman cites Angyal (1956), Fromm (1959), Guilford (1967), Greenacre (1957), Hilgard (1959), Lowenfeld (1958), Mooney (1956) and Stein (1953) as witnesses for the importance of problem sensitivity in creative performance.

(2) Ability to tolerate ambiguity is another aspect widely noted. Hallman (1963) characterizes it as "the ability to accept conflict and tension resulting from polarity (Fromm, 1959), to tolerate inconsistencies and contradictions (Maslow, 1963), to accept the unknown, and be comfortable with the ambiguous, approximate, and uncertain." He names Hart (1950), Wilson (1954) and Zilboorg (1959) as holding similar views. The ability to tolerate ambiguity appears also related with two other aspects. One is the ability to toy with ideas, rather playfully rearranging them into different forms. The other is preference for complexity, found by Barron (1963) in his study of artists.

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(3) Internalized locus of evaluation is a Rogerian phrase for what Hallman calls a sense of destiny and personal worth which internalizes the value system so that it is not dependent upon cultural mores. This personal autonomy, also named by Maslow (1954) as characteristic of self-actualized people is really the opposite of authoritarian tendencies. The development of autonomy in young adults has been found to be negatively correlated with authoritarianism. Benton (1967), in a doctoral thesis, found openness (opposite of authoritarianism) to be predictive of creativity among students.
An interesting sidelight of this aspect is the resultant philosophical, unhostile sense of humor, so characteristic of creative people, and found by Maslow as one of the qualities of his selfactualized group.

(4) Spontaneity is a quality used by both Hallman and Maslow to describe openness and creativity. It involves more isomorphic and comfortable relations with reality, so that one experiences life directly and "openly," not as if through a darkened glass. There is an appreciation and wonderment toward life, a childlike awe and admiration of that which is mysterious about the universe, blending into a mystic or oceanic feeling. All of these are qualities named by Maslow about his self-actualized people. "Scientific genius," said Poincare, "is the capacity to be surprised."

Finally, while still on the mental health aspect of creativity, the considerable testimony should be noted for creativity as at least a two-stage process as one ascends the mental health scale. Arieti (1967, p. 335) describes Jung's views as follows:

Jung believes that the creative pi ocess occurs in two modes: the psychological and the visionary; the first mode nowhere transcends the bounds of psychological intelligibility. In the visionary mode, which concerns Jung more deeply, the content emerges from the collective unconscious
...
The creative process then consists of an unconscious animation of the archetype and hence the great works of art transcend life experience of the period in which its producer lives, and is conferred with universal significance. 1

Hallman (1963), in his definitive review, has this to say:

A third cluster of evidence surrounds the definition that creative activity involves an interchange of energy among vertical layers of psychological systems. Creativeness consists in a shift of psychic levels. Most Writers identify two psychological levels and refer to them variously as the primary-secondary processes, the autistic and reality adjusted, unconscious mechanisms and conscious deliberation, free and bound energies, gestalt-free and articulating tendencies. These writers include Freud, Ehrenzweig (1953), and Schneider (1950). Maslow (1959) adds to these two levels a third one called integration.

Another who believes in two levels of creativity is Taft (1970), who states:

There are two styles of creativity; one a measured, problem-solving approach, and the other an emotion and comparatively uncontrolled free expression.



lFrom page 335, Arieti, S. The Intrapsychic Self, Copyright 1967, Basic Books, New York. Used by permission.

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Taft believes that this dichotomy stems from the distinction made between primary and secondary processes by Freud. The primary process creativity (or "hot" creativity) occurs in the preconscious, and the secondary process (or "cold" creativity) requires more controls and less fantasy expression, such as scientific investigation, for example.And Ghiselin (Taylor and Barron, 1963, p. 42) tells us that:

It is reasonable to say that there are two levels of creativity, one higher and one lower, one primary and one secondary, one major and one minor. Creative action of the lower, secondary sort gives further development to an established body of meaning through initiating some advance in its use
.... Creative action of the higher, primary sort alters the universe of meaning itself, by introducing into it some new element of meaning or some new order of significance, or, more commonly, both.1

Damm (1970) after analyzing studies of Arnold (1962), Blatt (1964), MacKinnon (1964), Barron (1963), Roe (1963) and Gerber (196 5) on the relationship between creativity and mental health in adults concludes that a strong relationship exists. Damm (1970) found students high in intelligence and creativity are more self-actualized as measured by Shostrom's (1966) Personal Orientation Inventory than students who are high in intelligence only. He concluded that students who obtained high scores on both areas were superior in selfactualization and recommended that the development of both intelligence and creative abilities should be a prime educational goal.Hallman (1963), speaking about self-actualization, says

Empirically, this criterion is supported by the great wealth of data which has been reported. Maslow (1956) has spoken most forcefully on this theme. He equates creativity with the state of psychological health, and this with the selfactualization process. There is no exception to this rule, he says. "Creativity is an universal characteristic of self-actualizing people." This form of creativeness reaches beyond special- talent creativeness; it is a fundamental characteristic of human nature. It touches whatever activity the healthy person is engaged in.

Craig (1966) reviewed trait theories of creativity and listed four personality correlates which were congruent with Maslow's holistic scheme of selfactualization and character integration. Newton (1968) in doctoral research found high correlation between progress toward self-actualization and intelligence.

Moustakas (1967) attempted to conceptualize creativity in terms of selfgrowth and self-renewal by stressing the uniqueness of the individual and his potentialities for mental health.

Creativity as Freudian and Neo-Freudian

The Freudian school.

While Freud said comparatively little about creativity as such, psychoanalytic literature has been especially fertile in developing models to account for it. These theories, as pointed out by Hallman (Gowan and Demos,



1From pages 42-3, Ghiselin in Taylor, C. W. and Barron, F. (Eds.) Scientific Creativity: Its Recognition and Development, Copyright 1963, John Wiley and Sons. Used by permission.

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1967) center around several related viewpoints. They start with a number of rather strict followers of the Freudian school including Brill (1931), Deri (1939), Engleman (1952), Erikson (1963), McAlpine and Hunter (1952), Schachtel (1959), Sterba, P. and E. (1952), Van Der Sterren (1952), and Weiss (1953). Freud claimed (193 8) that the sublimation of the sexual urge "forms one of the sources of artistic activity," and is the main source of cultural energy, and hence it is not surprising that there is a rather large literature by neo-Freudians linking psychoanalytic theory with artistic enterprise.

For example, Schneider (1950, p. 93) points out that creativity's thrust from the unconscious and creative mastery by the conscious must be joined in the artist, and additionally states:

The true creative man, to use Freud's phrase, has more at his disposal, special gifts, which enable him to adventure beyond the borders of the corridor
of transformation -into the mysteries and mechanics of the process which im pinges upon him from the inner time-space world of reality. He lives nearer to his dreams and at the same time he encompasses routine and penetrates beyond routine into the practical magic of ever-changing, ever-subtle reality. 1

Rank's views. Secondly, come Freud's three great disciples, each of whom rejected some aspect of Freud's sexual explanation of energy transformation in favor of something more positive and grandiose, such as "life-force," compensation, collective unconscious, etc. (Adler, 1952; Jung, 1916; and Rank, 1932).

Otto Rank was one of the first to extend psychoanalytic theory to cover creative production. Defining will as the integration of self-concept, he made it a central issue in the ego-psychology which he developed. Rank saw man as moving through existence from the trauma of the womb to the trauma of the tomb, beset with two fundamental fears-fear of life, and fear of death. Fear of life is fear of differentiation, of separation, of being oneself. Since it is the fear of independence, it causes regression to symbolic union with the mother figure. Fear of death is fear of integration, of joining with others, of having one's personality lost. Fear of life drives man to union with others; fear of death drives one to an assertion of oneself. Rank saw the measurement of development in an individual as the degree to which he achieves a constructive integration of these two polar opposites in his nature.

Specifically, will is first experienced as a negative counter to parental demands during the autonomy period, and it causes guilt and immobilization during the initiative period. Some children give up the fight right here; they decide never to oppose parental will, and by extension adapt wholeheartedly to the laws of school and society. These become the adapted type-bland, placid, conforming, and sterile. It is the easiest solution to the problem, but at the price of lost creativeness. Then there are those who wage uncertain warfare in this area. They are more or less bound by parental and societal demands, yet they have not given up completely, and while suffering pangs of conscience, are not completely guilt immobilized. The price they pay for this ambivalence and lack of resolution is neuroticism.



lFrom page 93, Daniel E. Schneider, The Psychoanalyst and the Artist, Copyright 1950, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., New York. Used by permission.

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This is the condition of "civilized" man, at war with himself, as he is with social forces around him. This type, according to Rank, has at least progressed from the adapted type, so that he may be said to be "on the way," but until the neurotic problem has been allayed, his creative gifts are generally denied and remain latent. The third type, more progressed than the other two, is, in Rank's view, the true creative artist, a man of "will and deed." He is imaginative and has the energy and thrust to get his ideas accomplished.

The neo-Freudians. Third come a group of writers who adopt the neo-Freudian view that the oedipal crisis during the narcissistic period is the genesis of creative function. These include Besdine (1968, 1970), Gowan (1965), Kubie (1958), Ruitenbeek (1965), and Winnicott (1965). Besdine (1970), for example, finds a particular style of mothering contributes to the development of creativity in the child. The intelligent mother's need for emotional intimacy and intellectual contact with an only child or oldest son results in an intense mother-child attachment. This ferninizes the son, but opens up for him more idea striving, more imagination, and more interest in literature and art.

Gowan (1965, pp. 3-6) described the child's oedipal response to the affectional approach of the opposite-sexed parent as an original theory according to which .... boys who were close to their mothers and girls close to their fathers during the period between four and seven will become more creative than others. Such a theory, of course, would explain why there appear to be more creative men than women in the world. The child, at this time, enchanted by the warm effect of the opposite-sexed parent, responds to this in the only way he can-by the creative manipulation of his immediate environment, and by the enlargement of the bridge between his fantasy life and his real world.2

Attempting to verify this theory by means of questionnaires to parents of creative and noncreative, gifted children, Gowan (1969) found that "the oppositesexed parent had devoted more time to this child than the same sexed parent" favored high creatives over low creatives by a score of I I to 5, and the child was declared very close to the opposite-sexed parent by a score of 20 to 11.

Another research finding indicating that warmth in the opposite-sexed parent promotes creativity in the young child was that of Pauline Sears (1968), who, in a carefully delineated study, found definite indications of the influence of this affective warmth on creative development.

Singer (196 1 ) found her high fantasy children showed significantly greater oedipal involvement as opposed to preoedipal conflict in the low fantasy group. Weisberg and Springer (1961) report creative children reveal their oedipal anxieties more easily than noncreative. Greenacre (1957) found that gifted children resolved their oedipal problems less decisively. Helson (1967), who investigated some especially creative college women, reported there was some tendency for



1Rank's views on creativity were included in the remarks by Dr. Donald MacKinnon at the Buffalo Creative Problem-Solving Workshop in June 1970.
2From Gowan, J. C. "What Makes a Gifted Child Creative: Four Theories" Gifted Child Quarterly, 9:3-6, 1965. Used by permission.

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them as daughters to model themselves on their fathers to a greater extent than among the less creative group. Schaefer (1970), in another study on especially creative adolescent girls, suggests that his creative subjects have identified more with the father than the mother and notes several results of his analysis which support this conclusion.

Oedipal theories.
A variation of this oedipal theme is that creative accom- plishments are sublimations of aggressive, phallic or incestuous desires and hence refinements of basic drives and primary process. Among those holding such views are numbered Fairburn (1938), Grotjohan (1957), Levey (1940), Schneider (1950), Segal (1952), Simon and Gagnon (1969), Sharp (1930) and Spock (1970). Schneider sees creativity as the outcome of phallic thrust and mastery stemming from the Freudian narcissistic period, while Simon and Gagnon (1969) wonder if the erotic fantasies accompanying masturbation do not help boys catch up with girls in measures of achievement and creativity. A view more in line with Puritan ethos values is taken by famed pediatrician Benjamin Spock who says:

Though the pressure of the physical aspect of sexuality is intense in adolescence, part of it is still held in check and transformed into idealistic channels, to the degree that the family has aspirations. In such families, the little boy's romantic adoration of his mother, suppressed for years, veiled, disembodied, now lends depth, mystery, and spirituality to his awakening love for a girl .... This idealization of women is a source of further inspiration to men. It combines with their drive to create, and these two forces are the principal sources of men's poetry, novels, plays, music, painting, sculpture, much of which has women as its subject.... The biographies of a number of remarkably creative men show that as boys they were inspired to an unusual degree by the characters of their mothers, and by the fantasies, ambitions and ideals their mothers kindled in them. 1

The preconscious. Finally, there are those who regard the preconscious as the sources of man's creativity and its development as central. These include principally Kubie (1958) in his masterly treatise, "The Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process," but also Happich (1932), Kris (1952) and Getzels and Jackson (196 2) and the present writer.

Getzels and Jackson (196 2) attempt to explain this effect in terms of the theory of Kubie (1958), "pointing to the greater flux or movement of preconscious material into the conscious expression of the creative person." They note more impulsive, unusual responses concerning vocational choices and other interests, which diverge from stereotyped meanings in the creative as contrasted with the noncreative. They quote Schachtel (1959, p. 243) as stating that creative behavior is the "product of repressed libidinal or aggressive impulse and of a regression to infantile modes of thought or experience, to the primary process, albeit in the service of the ego." They quote Freud's initial hypothesis that "creative behavior is a continuation of a substitution for the play of childhood." Kubie speaks of toying with preconscious material, and Bruner (1966) describes



1From page 34-5, Spock, B. Decent and Indecent, Copyright 1970, McCall Publishing Co., New York. Used by permission.

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the importance of play first as "an attitude in which the child learns that the outcomes of various activities are not so extreme as he had either hoped or feared." Noting that he has been struck by differences in the encouragement of play in their children by parents, he concludes by arguing that "play makes it possible for intrinsic learning to begin."

Happich (1932) took the level of consciousness he called "symbolic consciousness," which seemed to lie between consciousness and unconsciousness, as the point of departure for all creative production, and therefore also for the healing process. On this level the collective unconscious can express itself through symbolism.

Thus Gutman (Mooney and Razik, 1967, p. 24) states,

A spontaneous, involuntary, automatic quality of creative thinking processes has been reported by Hadamard (1949). According to Ghiselin (1952), this quality has been experienced by Spencer, Nietzsche, Gauss, Poincare, Henry James, and others. In some, this feeling of automatism has been so strong that it was accompanied by an impression that some outside agent had whispered to them the productive ideas which suddenly came to them. Socrates' "demon" is a famous example.

That creative thinking involves subconscious or nonverbal activity is reported almost universally. Rossman (1931, p. 86), who has made an extensive survey of the traits and working methods of inventors, reports that "many inventors attribute the formation of the mental patterns to the subconscious mind." Hadamard (1954), who has studied the psychology of invention in great mathematicians, quotes Poincare and Einstein in support of the claim that creative thinking involves subconscious or nonverbal mental activity. Evidence for this claim is also given by Maier (1931) in his studies on problemsolving. Ghiselin (195 2) comes to the conclusion that "the first impulse toward new order in the psychic life ... is an impulse away from the conscious activity ... an impulse toward unconsciousness."

Schneider (1950) points out this barrage of the preconscious by external forces serves to bring down creative performance in the following passage:

The external world helps the internal inhibition to cut down the preconscious instrument of transformation until it is either stereotyped and rigid, or inert and blocked, instead of having that practiced sensitivity and that elasticity which is of the essence in creative life.1

Sadler (1969) equates play and creative perception. He notes that Piaget sees play primarily as the function of assimilation, but it cannot be subsumed entirely under that function. "The underlying structure of play is constituted by a certain reorientation of the ego to reality."

Weissman (1967) reviewed the literature on the Kris idea of creativity as regression in the service of the ego and found it wanting as a valid concept. Ruth Cohn (Otto and Mann, 1969, p. 177) puts the relationship thus:



1From page 131, Schneider, S. E. The Psychoanalyst and the Artist, Copyright 1950, by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., New York. Used by permission.
2From page 24, Mooney, R. L. and Razik, T. A. Explorations in Creativity, Copyright, 1967 by Harper and Row, New York. Used by permission.

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Valid intuition uses preconscious roads and sensory, logical and emotional vehicles to connect conscious and unconscious psychological data and organize them.1

Kubie (Mooney and Razik, 1967, pp. 33-43) says,

At the core of this process is a continuous stream of subliminal, i.e., "preconscious," activity which goes on both during sleep and when we are awake and is carried on without conscious symbolic imagery. Analogous to a computer it processes "bits" of information by scanning, ordering, selecting and rejecting, arranging in sequence by juxtaposition and separation on the basis of chronology, by condensations on the basis of similarity, dissimilarity by contrasts, proximity and distance and finally summating and coding.

The problem of how to protect the freedom of the preconscious processing in learning in education in general and in creativity.
Again Kubie (Mooney and Razik, 1967, p. 38), having described the demands of the conscious mind and drives of the unconscious, says:

How then do creative processes operate between these two rigid systems? This depends upon the freedom of preconscious functions. This is the implement of all thinking, particularly of creative thought. Preconsciously, we process many things at a time. By processes of free associations, we take ideas and approximate realities apart and make swift condensations of their multiple allegorical and emotional import. Preconscious processes make free use of analogy and allegory, superimposing dissimilar ingredients into new perceptual and conceptual patterns, thus reshuffling experience to achieve that extraordinary degree of condensation without which creativity in any field would be impossible.2

Gowan (1969) summed up this stance as follows:

We agree with Kubie (1958, p. 50) that creative performance involves "cogitation and intelligence," cogitation, to shake ideas together and intelligence, to select from among ideas. The necessary condition is intelligence which provides the vocabulary to be sorted and the means of selection. We guess, for example, that one reason why children of lower intelligence rarely become creative is that they do not reach Bruner's level of symbolic representation (when ideas become intellectually negotiable because one can recount experience) until nearly the end of the initiative period. In contrast the bright child reaches this stage about the middle of this period when the creative motivations we have discussed can cogitate or "shake together" the symbolic representations of experience. We feel that the Freudian-Erik sonian views heretofore expressed, while sufficient to explain the motivations which produce the cogitation, require amplification of cognitive structure theory to ensure that the shaking up produces something cognitively creative instead of triviality. (The preconsciousness of musical and mathematical genius shows that it is easier for the child to accomplish this in nonverbal than in verbal areas.) We attach importance to the fact that in the Piagetian cognitive stages, the same



1From page 177, Ruth Cohn in Otto, H. and Mann, J. Ways of Growth, Copyright 1968, by Otto and Mann. Used by permission.
2From Kubie, L. S. "Blocks to Creativity," Copyright June 1965, International Science and Technology. Used by permission (as quoted by Mooney, R. and Razik, T. (Editors) Explorations in Creativity. New York: Harper and Row, 1967, pp. 33-43).

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age period is named the "intuitive stage." It is quite possible that further developmental discoveries await us in this area.

Another Freudian view sees creativity as an outgrowth of libido pleasure. Lowen (1970) states, "If the bodily pleasure of an individual is destroyed, he becomes an angry, frustrated and hateful person. His thinking becomes distorted, and his creative potential is lost. He develops self-destructive tendencies.112 Lowen sees pleasure as the source of creativity.

Margolies and Litt (1966), in a study of creativity in art, attempted to explain creativity on the orgonomy theories of William Reich. Hallman (1966), in an evaluation of the aesthetic pleasingness of the creative process, listed four modes of pleasure: suspense, release, elation and delight.

Creativity as Psychedelic

Finally there are those who regard creativity as a psychedelic manifestation, part of the existential "Eigenwelt," or in other paranormal terms. Merely because this stance is less "scientific" than others is no reason to reject it out of hand. The connection of creativity with hypnotism, ESP, and other paranormal aspects by Krippner and others deserves the most careful scrutiny. Among the best sources of this psychedelic aspect are the new books by Tart (1969) and by Masters and Houston (1966), both of which incline to this view.

Psychologists and Freudians tend to place this focus within the human mind, particularly in the preconscious and unconscious aspects; mystics and others are inclined to place it outside, or at least to ascribe outside connections to, or influences on, the preconscious. Since we know so little about the preconscious, both sides deserve a hearing.

Myers (1903), following Janet and Freud, developed a theory of the "subliminal self." He regarded the conscious self as but "a limited and specialized phase of the total self" (Tyrell, 1947, p. 26). It was as Myers (1903, p. 25) put it, "a gold mine as well as a rubbish heap ... full of upheavals and alternations ... of many kinds, so that what was once below the surface may for a time ... rise above it."

It was Tyrell who reminds us that those products of the human mind at once most original and eminent have not come from the realm of consciousness. Rather they have seeped, flowed, or burst into it from beyond (in the preconscious). He then quotes Harding (1942, pp. 68 ff.) on some testimony from famous sources. Socrates is quoted as saying "It is not by wisdom that poets create ... but by inspiration, like prophets. . . ."

"Poetry is not like reasoning," declared Shelley, "a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, 'I will write poetry.'  The greatest poet even cannot say it."  Blake said of his poem Milton, "I have



lFrom Gowan, J. C. "Why Some Gifted Children are Creative," Gifted Child Quarterly, 15:13-19, Spring 1971. Used by permission.
2From Lowen, Alex. Pleasure, Copyright 1970, Coward-McCann. Used by permission.

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written this poem from immediate dictation ... without premeditation, and even against my will." Keats remarked that his poetry often came to him "by chance or magic, to be, as it were, something given to him"; and George Eliot confided that in her best writing there was a "not herself." George Sand wrote that "It is the other who sings as he likes." Goethe said, "The songs made me, not I them." What is true of poets and writers is also true of scientists and composers - all tell of venturing into an enlarged realm of consciousness as if the Sullivanian "not me" had opened up to them and disgorged a creative fantasy instead of its usual magic nightmare. Psychologically this uncanny "not me" area can be identified as part of the preconscious, containing like the cave of Aladdin marvelous treasure as well as frightening genies. The conscious mind exploring this cavern finds itself overwhelmed by becoming cognizant of an enlarged domain.

Hallman (1963) says of this aspect,

The incubation stage, for example, consists of spontaneous, uncontrollable events which cluster themselves seemingly in accordance with their own autonomous laws. It involves the relaxation of conscious thinking operations and the inhibitions of logical control. Maslow refers to this process as voluntary regression (1958), Ehrenzweig as Surrender of the ego (195 3), and Rogers as openness to experience (1959). The stage of illumination remains even more of a mystery. Being singular, unpredictable, idiosyncratic, it resists formal description. Writers from Plato to Lu Chi, in ancient China, to Nietzsche have remarked about the unexplainable nature of inspiration. Patrick has been most diligent in trying to prove the theory of four stages (1937). Poincare and Hadamard (1940) agree that the four stages adequately account for mathematics creations. Arnold (1959), Patrick and Montmasson (1931) discover the same four stages in connection with scientific inventions. Patrick (1937) and Spender (1946) believe that poetic creativeness occurs in sequential stages. Other writers who explain the creative process in this fashion were mentioned above (Vinacke, 1952).

Kierkegaard's name for self-conscious decision making was Existenz. It is the self-attitude of the individual called forth by necessity of choice making and, therefore, an inner and self-conscious process of becoming. Or in Sechi's words (1969), "It is a process of creative striving to reaffirm one's commitment to objective possibilities; it is a projection of oneself toward the future. Man's Existenz separates thought and being, necessity and freedom, time and eternity, holding them apart from the other in succession."

May pointed out (Anderson, 1959, p. 56) that most psychoanalytic theories about creativity are "reductive," i.e., creativity is reduced to some other process (such as Adler's theory that creativity is seen as an expression of some neurotic pattern; "Regression in service of the ego" is Kris' famous phrase). May goes on to point out that Webster defines creativity as the "process of making or bringing into being" and this aspect of becoming leads May to label creativity as central in existential theory. Creativity, he summarizes, is the encounter of the intensely conscious human being with his world.

Helder, in doctoral research, (1968), contrasted mystical and peak experiences found in the more open creative stance with traditional perceptual-cognitive consciousness. Moriarty and Murphy (1967) in research connecting creativity with paranormal experience described five personality variables favorable to both

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effects. Horonton (1967) in another study of precognition and creativity found that high creatives were much more precognitive than low creatives. Pang and Fort (1967) also investigated the positive correlation between creativity and ESP.

In the opening words of his treatise on "The Creativeness of Life," Edmund Sinott, distinguished biologist, put the matter very succinctly:

Alfred North Whitehead once remarked that the psychical is the creative advance into novelty. Ralph Lillie (1945) still went further. "Inertia," said he, "is primarily a physical property, a correlate of the conservation which is a recognized character of the physical as physical. in contrast, the psychical, being a factor of novelty, is the anticonservative property in nature." In other words, mind is the source of creativity.

SUMMARY

In this introductory chapter an attempt has been made to develop a selective search of the literature in regard to the two major aspects of the title of this volume: development and creativity.

Development has been analyzed as both species improvement and change through evolution, and of personal growth and change to become more effective as an adult. In particular the stage aspects of development have been emphasized, and its qualitative difference from growth noted.

With regard to creativity, where the recent literature has been most prolific, five subdivisions have been recognized on a parameter which goes along a continuum from rational problem solving to irrational psychedelia. These have been categorized as:

a. Cognitive, rational and problem-solving aspects

b. Personality traits, family and environmental origins

c. Mental health, psychological openness and self-actualization

d. Freudian, oedipal and preconscious views

e. Existential, psychedelic and irrational aspects.