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