5.2.2 Creativity - General

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).

I mentioned the link between creativity and time in the last post and it is also one of our root foundations.

Time is a fairly significant factor in anger. We can be angry if we perceive that we have not enough time, or we have run out of time, or other people are putting pressure on us to move too quickly, or someone gets in our way, slowing us down when we are trying to do something.

Even in the case of the mini-crisis in the kitchen in the Chapter on Systems Theory when Dad was getting the children to school, time pressure was one possible cause of his anger.  And think of how irritated we get if the traffic light goes red when we are in a hurry, not to mention the car in front of us not moving off quickly enough.

But there are other aspects worth noting about time!

No other action, in my opinion, is as helpful in building relationships (particularly in their early stages) than displaying flexibility with respect to availability of time [1].

If we perceive that no-one ever had time for us we really appreciate time given to us when we are under pressure.

And given that someone in a family in our Focus Group may be angry at many things – time is a very useful tool in our work reducing anger.

Just as importantly, it also facilitates the education of the worker.  It opens up, in real-time, a path to the individual’s family and all the difficulties that the family (probably) has but maybe have never trusted anyone enough to be open about. 

Outreach work, particularly that which includes street-work, is a very good example of creativity-in-action.  It facilitates/enables the building of relationships with people who have lost or are losing contact with mainstream society.  It is also a statement about how we want to use our time.

It also increases the chances that we and our organisation will have relevance in someone’s life. This is particularly true at between-crisis times when so much good work can be done, as people may be more receptive to new thinking when not under pressure.

And, of course, outreach work enhances the cultural matching described in the previous Chapter. It is a risk, as rejection is always a possibility, but it is a risk well worth taking.

Another enhancer of creativity, and thinking outside the box, is democracy in our organisation, where we feel heard, have a genuine, felt, sense of belonging and where our opinions in respect of our own healing are taken seriously.

Streetwork, or other forms of encounter on someone else’s turf, where people feel safe to express spontaneous views, fosters democracy.

And true democracy, where we really feel heard and get a sense that we have power takes time.

[1]. Alice Leahy the redoubtable campaigner for the homeless wrote/edited a very enjoyable book entitled Wasting Time with People.

Sometimes, statutory agencies and other Pillars influenced entities use words like unreachable to describe families in our Focus Group.

But people – and this includes members of families who have always viewed the system with suspicion and wariness, and choose to make themselves unreachable – are naturally drawn towards creativity.

Creativity excites, invites and usually stimulates a response.  If you are a parent, or if you have ever worked with children, (or if you remember your own childhood) you will know this.

And the same is true for adults.

Creativity is intimately connected with passion and love, and fosters hope, i.e. the possibility that something might be different, that there is an invitation to express myself and perhaps look at the same situation with different eyes.

Research in neuroscience has proven that love and creativity impact on activity in the brain, relieving psychological pain and contributing to the release of certain chemicals that reduce the effects of other chemicals associated with anger and hostility [1].

Risk taking, (not foolhardiness) is a necessary component of creativity.

In order to make any progress in any field we need to take a risk.  It is attractive to people who are in distress because many people who are in distress and/or have had tragedies or very difficult experiences in their lives are angry with what they perceive as bureaucratic obstacles that are placed in their way for – from their point of view – no apparent reason.

When we take a risk we put ourselves out on a bit of a limb, and in this context our organisation needs to accept that not all risks turn out well.  One good way to foster appropriate risk taking is to encourage/enable external supervision for staff, either individual or in small group.

Risk-taking is also good modelling in our goal of encouraging good enough parenting. 

Every time we discipline our child we take a risk of sorts.  We weigh up the consequences of the disciplinary action – whether or not it is appropriate and helpful in firstly building a loving relationship and secondly the overall project of rearing a child who has an appreciation of boundaries.

If we are under pressure or are in distress ourselves our parenting skills are always enhanced by having our minds opened to creative methods of disciplining children.

We can learn many skills on formal parenting courses but a far more effective way of mind-opening is that creativity is modelled, not only in parenting, but in all aspects of our lives.

[1]. I recommend Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt (2004) if you are interested in recent scientific/medical research that posits how love and creativity enables healthy brain development in babies and children.

In the Chapter on The Family Support Shamrock I described many factors in organisations (and individuals) that would inhibit creativity.

Let us recap here and expand a little.

Creativity is inhibited by fear, and inward looking, conservative attitudes.

Generally speaking, knee jerk reactions will not be creative when trying to find solutions to seemingly impossible situations, and indeed may feed into harmful prejudices that people may already have.

I believe that organisations can often find a reason why not to do something quicker than they find a reason to do it, particularly if it is something new, that is not tried and tested, or that comes from an idea put forward by the person who comes looking for help rather than the higher echelons of the organisation.

This is partly due to a lack of understanding of the role of creativity in the process of growth, as well as a reluctance in the organisation to encourage spontaneity (perhaps, in case, something goes wrong).

It can also, of course, be due to the higher ranking person feeling threatened by a bottom up idea because they fear that it will, in some way, undermine them.

Largeness (size) which I discuss in the Chapter on Organisational Matters also seems to have a negative impact on creativity.