The Creative Mind series explores creative talents and creative expression in terms of personal development and psychology.

A number of topics are included, such as personality, inspiration, self-concept, high sensitivity, beliefs, mental health and mood, fear and courage.

Information from multiple coaches, psychologist, writers and other experts on creativity and personal development is included, plus links to related books, sites and articles.

Accomplished and well-known writers, actors, designers and other artists are quoted on their personal experiences and perspectives on these topics.

Material comes from my weekly column The Creative Mind, published here (on the site you are reading), and on Psych Central, since June, 2010. There is also additional material just for the books.

Part One in the planned series is a focus on identity and confidence: topics that impact how motivated and energized people may be to pursue their creative talents and ideas.

>> See links to purchase the Kindle, PDF and interactive ebook versions at the bottom of the page.

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Listing of the brief Sections, each with links to additional articles, books or other resources:

Introduction
You Have to be an Artist to be Creative, and Other Myths
Identity and Being Creative – Aren’t We All Freaks or Outsiders?
Acting On Our Creativity
Idina Menzel on Embracing Your Uniqueness
Gender labels and sexual orientation
Feeling Like A Fraud – Insecurity and Creative People
Developing Creativity – Our Shadow Side
Julia Cho: “Least Likely Playwright Possible”
Undercutting Our Creativity With Self-sabotaging Limits
Creative Potential of Eccentricity
Creative inspiration – R. Keith Sawyer on myths of creativity
More Intelligence, More Creative?
Naomi Watts on Identity and Self Esteem
Does Creativity Have An Expiration Date?
Creative Thinking: Imagine You Are Seven Again
Developing Creative Identity Without Losing Authenticity
Filmmaker Dee Rees on writing as an expression of coming out
The Complexity of the Creative Personality
The Creative Personality: Director Terrence Malick
Creative People Shouldn’t ‘Tone It Down’
High Sensitivity, Solitude, Introversion
Confidence and Creating
Envy and Your Creative Life
Tama Kieves on confidence to pursue creative dreams

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Author:

Douglas Eby, M.A./Psychology – I am a writer, researcher and online publisher on creativity and personal growth; creator of the Talent Development Resources series of sites, and author of the books:
“Developing Multiple Talents: The personal side of creative expression”;
“The Creative Mind: Identity and Confidence” and
“Being Highly Sensitive and Creative.”

I have been researching creativity and creative people for over twenty years, interviewing many dozens of coaches and psychologists, plus actors, writers, directors, designers, painters and other artists. [Also see Resumé.]

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“Creative expression derives directly from the unique Self of the creator…I believe the whole process is accompanied by a feeling of aliveness, of power, of capability, of enormous relief and of transcendence of the limits of our own body and soul. The ‘unique self’ flows into the world outside. It is like giving birth.”  Annemarie Roeper [Quotes from book The Gifted Adult by Mary-Elaine Jacobsen, PsyD.]

A few more excerpts from the book:

From the Healthy self esteem section:

In his article Self Esteem means feeling good inside, Karl Perera puts it simply: “Self Esteem is what we experience when we feel good about ourselves and when we feel good inside… when you like what you are doing, where you are going and feel you have your priorities right…. What you need to feel good inside is within your power. It is not the result but the route to achievement.”

Life Coach Karl Perera is author of the book Self Esteem Secrets: 12 Steps to Success.

“Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.”

That quote by John Lennon, it seems to me, represents some of the conflicts around self-regard that many highly talented people experience.

One of his biographers Larry Kane noted “People would be surprised at how insecure John Lennon was, and his lack of self esteem.

“This is a guy who did not have a father to speak of, a mother who disappeared, an aunt who was a disciplinarian, a failed first marriage…

“Throughout his life, even during the height of Beatle mania, when they were so successful in the early days, he had poor self esteem.”

Bio: Lennon Revealed, by Larry Kane.

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From the Nurturing creativity in solitude section:

In her article Psychological Factors in the Development of Adulthood Giftedness from Childhood Talent, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, PhD talks about solitude in early life:

“Many eminent individuals reported experiencing social isolation and loneliness as children. Many came from homes where there was ample opportunity for time alone for a variety of reasons and circumstances.

“Some were deliberately kept from having friends by their parents who feared the friend’s negative influences. Some creative producers sought solitary time as children to escape family tensions and stressful circumstances. Solitary time in childhood also supported the development of a rich internal fantasy life, one that could aid creative thought.”

Jessica Chastain

Acclaimed for her performances in “The Help” and in “Zero Dark Thirty” (as a CIA analyst who untiringly pursues Osama bin Laden), Jessica Chastain has talked about some aspects of herself and her personal life that may have helped her create such powerful characters as an actor.

A GQ magazine (U.K.) profile noted Chastain “has spent much of her life feeling like a fraud.

“While studying theater at New York’s prestigious Juilliard School [she had earned a scholarship], the actress was terrified that she’d be exposed as a talentless hack and sent home.”

“It’s really why I never partied with the other students,” says Chastain.

“There was a bar called Malarkeys that almost everyone would go to. I probably went twice in three years. In fact, I’ve never really been wasted. I’m not a fun person.”

In other interviews, Chastain has talked about her high sensitivity – a personality trait shared with many other talented actors and performers.

“I was the girl who cut school to go to the park, and the other kids would be smoking and drinking and I’d be reading Shakespeare.” … “I’m very sensitive in real life. I cannot not cry if someone around me is crying…even if it’s not appropriate.  I have that thing in me, a weakness or sensitivity.”

From post: Jessica Chastain on being sensitive and a loner.

This label of “weakness” is something many who are not a highly sensitive person (HSP) may judge about the personality trait – and also a self-critical label we may put on ourselves.

As I tried to point out earlier in this book, it is definitely not a “weakness.”

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From the section The Complexity of the Creative Personality :

In his classic book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi includes descriptions of characteristics of creative people.

In a post of hers, Juliet Bruce, Ph.D. notes that Csikszentmihalyi wrote, “If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude.”

He adds, “Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos –and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.”

Here are a few qualities he lists, and Bruce summarizes:

* A great deal of physical energy alternating with a great need for quiet and rest.

* Highly sexual, yet often celibate, especially when working.

* Smart and naïve at the same time. A mix of wisdom and childishness. Emotional immaturity along with the deepest insights.

* Convergent (rational, left brain, sound judgment) and divergent (intuitive, right brain, visionary) thinking…

* Both extroverted and introverted, needing people and solitude equally.

* Humble and proud, both painfully self-doubting and wildly self-confident.

* May defy gender stereotypes, and are likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other as well. A kind of psychic androgyny.

For more, see my post The Complexity of the Creative Personality.

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For more excerpts, see the archived posts on this site, and the sample interactive ebook below.

Available in 3 versions: Kindle, PDF and interactive ebook :

Get the Kindle version: The Creative Mind: Identity and Confidence [109 pages] $4.00

[Read it on a Kindle or Kindle Fire.]

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The Creative Mind: Identity and Confidence

ebook / pdf on Scribd   $3.50

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PDF version     [116 pages]   $3.50

In addition to the full text of the Kindle version, the PDF has multiple photos
and video links, plus some additional text and links not in the Kindle.

NOTE – To see what the PDF pages look like, visit the site below
(the interactive ebook is based on the PDF file) :

Interactive ebook – computers & mobile devices $3.50

Viewing on a computer (above is a screenshot), you can easily navigate around the book by clicking thumbnail images, or “turning” the pages using a mouse, and you can play videos.

On a mobile device (smart phone, iPad or other tablet), you can navigate from page to page by swiping with your finger. You can also play videos.

To purchase, you must sign in using Facebook or Twitter (or set up a free account) with the publisher Joomag – which also has multiple interactive ebooks and magazines available; many are free.

View the first few pages and try out the interactive features such as page turning and zooming:

The Creative Mind: Identity and Confidence ebook

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