Creativity is an Expression of Mental Health

Vincent Ryan Ruggiero in his book The Art of Thinking writes that one common image of the creative person is reinforced by a number of low-budget horror films. That image depicts a wild-eyed mad scientist, shuffling nervously around a laboratory (pronounced lab-or-a-try in an ominous tone of voice), rubbing hands together evilly and drooling. Many people really believe the image: They view creative person and lunatic as near synonyms.  Vincent says that they are – wrong!

In the following passage, Harold H. Anderson summaries a leading psychological view concerning the relative sanity of creative people. (Endorsers include such respected thinkers as Erick Fromm, Rollo May, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, P.J. Guilford, and Ernest Hilgard).

“The consensus of these authors is that creativity is an expression of a mentally or psychologically healthy person, that creativity is associated with wholeness, unity, honesty, integrity, personal involvement, enthusiasm, high motivation, and action.

There is also agreement that neurosis either accompanies or causes a degraded quality of one’s creativity. For neurotic persons and persons with other forms of mental disease [who are, at the same time, creative] such assumptions as the following are offered: that these persons are creative in spite of their disease; that they are producing below the achievements they would show without the disease; that they are on the downgrade, or that they are pseudo creative, that is, they may have brilliant original ideas which, because of the neurosis, they do not communicate.”

In summary: Creativity is the expression of mental health. Rejoices!

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

5 Words to Know that You're Creative

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1, NIV)

Dorothy Sayers once said that if all we knew about God was the first five words in the Bible, all we would know is that God is creative. When in the first words of the Bible, we discover God’s identity as a creator, we get a glimpse of our own identity as humans who possess creative capacities.

Genesis (chapter 1) reveals the dimension of God’s creative process, which, not surprisingly, given our creation in God’s image, is replicated in human creativity. “In the beginning, God created.” God brings something out of nothing and order out of chaos. “The earth was a formless void.” God is a seer who can envision something others cannot and then imaginatively reveal the new reality as a unique, distinct entity. “God saw what He had made and it was good.” Like God, the good artist strives for excellence, not just expression, and the spiritual, intellectual, and imaginative quality of the work is the measurement by which we determine the worth of our art. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and the human artist seeks to relate and communicate through his or her art.

Our human creativity originates in God’s creative image, which is imprinted in our genetic code. Whereas God created out of nothing; humans create out of what exists. So Igor Stravinsky observes, “Only God can create. I make music from music.” Great artists will tell you that their imaginative inspiration comes from some unknown place. Filmmaker Ang Lee confesses that when things work, they come to him; they are not what he was willed. Mark Doty says that a good poem is something he finds, not something he makes. Imagination cannot be manufactured or willed into being, yet it is at the heart of the creative enterprise. God creates from a known place, Himself, and at God’s core, you find an imaginative being.

Imagination reflects originality, intuition, and the hitherto unseen, and so we evaluate our individual and cultural health by looking for evidence of our imaginative capacity to deliver the new and fresh, which elicits and illuminates deeper, transcendent meanings.

As image bearers, we are designed with a creative capacity.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

[Quote from The Culturally Savvy Christian: A Manifesto for Deepening Faith and Enriching Popular Culture in an Age of Christianity-Lite by Dick Staub (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007) page 52-53]

The Use of Drug Hinders Creativity

Although many people seem determined to resist this fact, it has long been acknowledged by those who have studied creativity. If liquor and other drugs have been such a boon to original thought, one researcher ask, why hasn’t the corner saloon (or the backstreet) produced more creative achievers? No one, as yet, has answered this question satisfactorily. Nor is anyone likely to. The reason drugs harm creativity, Brewster Ghiselin explains, is that “their action reduces judgment, and the activities they provoke are hallucinatory rather than illuminating.” What is needed, he argues, is not artificial stimulation of the mind, but increased control and direction.

The use of drugs and liquor as stimulants is sometimes part of a larger misconception that might be termed the bohemian mystique. This misconception is the notion that a dissipated lifestyle somehow casts off intellectual restraints and opens the mind to new ideas. Eliot Dole Hutchinson offers an assessment that most researchers would endorse:

“Narrow streets, shabby studios, undisciplined living and artistic ballyhoo about local colour may all have their place in pseudo artistry, but they have little to do with genuine creation. Nor is the necessary creative freedom clearly associated with them at all. Bohemianism squanders its freedom, returns from its hours of dissipation less effective. Creative discipline capitalizes its leisure, returns refreshed, reinvigorated, eager.”

References:

§  Vincent Ryan Ruggiero’s The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought, 8^th Edition (Pearson Education, Inc., 2007) page 89

§  Eliot Dole Hutchinson’s How to Think Creatively (Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949) page 79

Having control and direction increased creativity

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Creativity Does Not Require Special Intellectual Talent or High IQ

The idea that highly creative people have some special intellectual ability lacking in the general population has been widely accepted for centuries. When the IQ test was devised, that idea was given new currency, and anyone who achieved less than a genius-level score (135 and above) was considered to have little or no chance for creative intellectual achievement.

However, when researchers began studying the lives of creative people and comparing IQ test performance with creativity test performance, they made two discoveries. They found that creativity depends not on the possession of special talents, but on the use of talents that virtually everyone has but most have never learned to use. In addition, they found that the IQ test was not designed to measure creativity, so a high score is no indication of creative ability, and a low score, no indication of its absence. In fact, they found that the great majority of creative achievers fell significantly below the genius level.

References:

§  J. W. Getzels and P. W. Jackson, Creativity and Intelligence (New York: Wiley, 1962) page 21

§  Torrance, Guiding Creative Talent, page 5 and 63

I’m glad I can still be creative even though I’m not genius

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Bill Gates: A Noble Creative Genius

William Henry "Bill" Gates III or simply known as Bill Gates is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. He founded the world's largest software business, Microsoft, with Paul Allen, and subsequently became one of the richest men in the world. For me, he is not only a creative genius (no doubt!) that has changed the world of digital we live today but also a man who is very generous with his money.

As his billions have grown, Bill Gates has become dedicated to using his money for good causes. Together with his wife, he founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an organization that works to bring learning and health to all the people of the world. At present, the foundation has committed more than $300 million to global health; more than $300 million to education, bring computers and Internet access to less prosperous people throughout the United States and Canada; more than $54 million to community projects in the Pacific Northwest; and more than $29 million to special projects and other charity campaigns.

Gates explained, “Giving is a complex thing. You have to find things you really believe in and that are fun to give to. I take philanthropy very seriously and I am learning about it.” Bill and Melinda Gates hope the money they have earned through their work will help to improve the lives of others.

As the keynote speaker at the Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy 2012, Bill Gates end his speech this way: “…Melinda and I have the honour and the responsibility to return to society, in the best way we know how, the resources we have received. But you do not need to be the chair of a large foundation to have an impact on the world. Risk takers need backers. Good ideas need evangelists. Forgotten communities need advocates. And whether your chief resource is volunteer time or hard-earned dollars, for a relatively small investment catalytic philanthropy can make a big impact. For me it’s proven the best job in the world, as thrilling and humbling as anything I’ve ever done.”

Noble creative people like Bill Gates are very much needed in the world today.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)