Creativity: A Survey and Critique of Major Investigation

Although Psychoanalysis has paid a good deal of attention to creativity, many other disciplines have been concerned with the topic as well. Much investigation and inquiry has been carried out in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and education, but little cross-fertilization among the diverse disciplines has been attempted. Our purpose in this paper is to survey major inquiry in all of the fields mentioned and to propose a unified approach to investigation. We will not attempt a detailed exegesis or analysis of any specific inquiry but will touch only on major points. Our prime interest is to provide an over-all picture of the state of investigation of the topic rather than to attempt a comprehensive theory on the basis of knowledge so far obtained. To some, our choice of major investigations may seem somewhat arbitrary. In psychoanalysis we only briefly describe the work of a few outstanding investigators. Our decision about major investigations is based in every case on the amount of attention the investigator has given to the topic and the significance of his work. We virtually ignore the vast amount of information provided by direct testimony of creative persons and cite only Poe (1846) and Coleridge (1817) in literature, and Cannon (1945) in science.1