Adult Recollections of Becoming Creative as a Child: An Empirical-Phenomenological Field Oriented Investigation

Abstract

In this study, the Giorgi method of phenomenological analysis was used to investigate adult recollections of becoming creative as a child. The research question was designed to focus on the environmental context of becoming creative as interpreted psychologically by the participants who provided the data. The decision to focus the research question on both childhood experience and environmental relations was based upon the literature on creativity, which has pointed to the important pedagogical role of context in becoming creative since Carl Rogers's (1954) groundbreaking work on the topic. A general structural description and an illustrated general structure are provided, each schematizing the qualitative meanings inherent to the unfolding that is becoming creative as a child. The results are then discussed in relation to the ideas presented in the literature review concerning the context of creative experience.

Notes

¹My use of the term empirical in referring to Giorgi's (2009) descriptive-phenomenological method is merely meant to highlight the fact that the reduction performed in this study relied on actual varied manifestations of the phenomenon that occurred in the lives of the participants (see DeRobertis, 2012). Giorgi is explicit that his method transcends a strict focus on the empirical.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eugene M. DeRobertis

Eugene M. DeRobertis holds a B.A. in philosophy from St. Peter's College and a Ph.D. in psychology from Duquesne University. He has been teaching psychology at the college level since 1996. Prior to committing himself to teaching full-time, Dr. DeRobertis worked as a developmentally oriented psychotherapist and addictions counselor. He has published multiple peer-reviewed works on existential-phenomenological psychology, the psychosocial impact of contemporary information technology, psychological maltreatment, and child developmental theory. He is the author of Humanizing Child Developmental Theory: A Holistic Approach (2008), The Whole Child: Selected Papers on Existential-Humanistic Child Psychology (2012), Existential-Phenomenological Psychology: A Brief Introduction (2012), and Profiles of Personality: An Approach-Based Companion (2013).