Now that I have decided that the creativity we are discussing will be of the life-affirming type I will continue!
Essential in our work, and hot on the heels of cultural matching, is the willingness to focus on creative methods of building relationships often in quite difficult and distressing scenarios.
Remember the inhibitors of creativity from the Chapter on The Family Support Shamrock? If you have forgotten them I invite you to look them up now.
In my experience what people need is creativity but what they often experience when they go looking for help is distance, aloofness, hastiness, conditional regard, and sometimes even coercion or punishment.
One of the reasons for this is time, as many of us working in this field are overworked.
But I believe that the lack of creativity in relationship building (which is the area we are interested in) also arises from the fact that it is generally not that highly esteemed in mainstream family support work.
I believe that creativity is fostered by confidence, and an appreciation of uncertainty and (acceptable) risk taking. Viewing spontaneity as a useful trait is also important.
And ‘why not?’ or ‘just do it!’ attitudes!
It is also enhanced by responsible behaviour, which assists in setting necessary boundaries – without which nothing will ever be achieved.
And one of the most important factors is flexibility.
That is, the willingness to put something aside, (that might seem to be important at the time), to attend to someone in distress. (A complete paper could be written on time).