CREATIVITY IN EXPERIENTIAL PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOTHERAPY L. M, LEITNER Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA A, J. FAIDLEY Flagstone Psychology, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA We propose that experiential personal construct paychatherapy demands therapist creativity in engaging clients, beginning with the initial diagnosis and continuing through the entire therapy process. We suggest a number of ways of enhancing therapist creativity in the therapy room. We discuss making. time for alonencss, secking particular kinds of interactions with others, fantasizing, having a passion for one’s work, trying on roles, exposing oneself to literature and the arts, leading «@ balanced life, reducing time pressures, making judgments, focusing on process, and seeing client growth. Finally, we consider creativity in the life of the therapist beyond the therapy room. We explore how the therapist's desire to be a part of life- changing psychotherapy mandates the personal pursuit of ercativity. CREATIVITY IN THE CONSTRUCTIVIST PSYCHOTHERAPIST Experiential personal constructivism (Leitner, 1988) views psycho- pathology as the consequence of relational disconfirmations and a subsequent numbing of experience (Leitner, in press; Leitner, Faidley, & Celentana, in press). If relationships can cause psychological suffer- ing, relationships also can be the source of psychological healing. Thus, the unique, intimate relationship in the therapy room is the healing instrument of psychotherapy. In this article we explore some of the implications of this position for creativity in the psychotherapist. We describe some of the many ways that experiential constructivist therapy demands a therapist who can creatively engage diverse clients, and we discuss ways to enhance the therapist's creativity in the therapy Received 10 December 1998; accepted 11 December 1998. Address correspondence to Larry M. Leitner, Department of Psychology, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056. E-mail: Leitnelm@po.muohio.edu Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 12273-286, 1999 273 Copyright © 1999 Taylor & Francis 1072.0537199 $12.00 + .00274 LM, Leitner and A. J. Faidley room. Finally, we talk about the importance of creativity in the per- sonal life of the therapist and argue that, without such creativity, life- changing psychotherapy cannot occur. Therapist Creativity in Experiential Constructivist Therapy Kelly’s (1955/1991) philosophy of constructive alternativism argues that people develop an immense variety of meanings through which to engage the world. All aspects of our interpersonal world are open to an infinite variety of constructions. As a result, each therapeutic journey is unique; the relationship created, based upon the personal meanings of the therapist and the client, will be unlike any other rela- tionship ever formed in the therapy room. Inasmuch as this is true for both therapist and client, each therapeutic contact (like every relational connection) is a creative endeavor. We literally have to create anew with each client the healing relationship that is psychotherapy. Not surprisingly, then, experiential constructivist therapy assumes that therapy will not be successful without therapist creativity. The therapist is faced with the challenge of integrating this uniquely per- sonal relationship with professional constructions that give the thera- pist some way of generalizing across clients. Without the former, the personal relationship, therapy is little more than the stale application of techniques. Without the latter, the generalizable constructs, the thera- pist can become lost in the experiential terrors of clients. In this sec- tion, we discuss some of the professional meanings of the experiential constructivist therapist and show how therapist creativity is inherent in each of these professional concepts. Diagnosis. Therapist creativity begins with arriving at an understand- ing of the client’s life struggles—a process typically referred to as “di- agnosis.” Traditional clinicians assume that a diagnosis is a descrip- tion of some real entity in the world. For example, if narcissism really exists as a psychological entity and, if I am too narcissistic, I have a personality disorder. If we assume, as constructivists and most sophis- ticated philosophers of science do, that a diagnosis is a professional construction as opposed to a real discovery of the essence of the per- son, we can see clear implications for therapist creativity in this area. If a diagnosis is not a cataloging of real diseases, professionals have responsibility for the system they have created. To the extent that our system of understanding and categorizing psychopathology does not allow us to help persons in distress, it is our own limitation, not our clients’ (Faidley & Leitner, 1993). Further,Creativity in Experiential PCP 275 when faced with such limitations, it is our responsibility to create alternative systems for understanding human distress, systems that allow therapists to be of help to clients (Leitner, Faidley, & Celentana, in press). In other words, therapists need to have the courage to aban- don the accepted nomenclature when such classifications are destruc- tive to clients. When therapists recognize that the current nomencla- ture is just one among many ways of describing persons and that that nomenclature has no a priori claims to truth, they may free themselves to be more creative in developing alternative understandings of clients. Optimal Therapeutic Distance. Optimal therapeutic distance (Leitner, 1995) is an integration of experientially connecting with and professionally subsuming the client’s meaning making. Experientially, optimal thera- peutic distance can be recognized when I am close enough to my client to experience my client’s feelings yet distant enough to recog- nize them as my client’s, not mine. Inasmuch as clients have an infi- nite number of struggles and meanings, optimal therapeutic distance implies that the therapist has to stretch his or her own meanings to subsume many diverse systems. In other words, I cannot consistently be optimally distant with a large number of clients unless I am cre- ative enough to enter meaningfully into their unique worlds. The abil- ity of the therapist to achieve optimal therapeutic distance with clients who experience the world very differently may be a rough gauge of therapist creativity. Consider Dean, a 40-year-old, alcohol dependent truck driver. Dean was a man of low-average intelligence with a mysogynistic attitude and, not surprisingly, a history of broken relationships. He had grown up in a home where the children were frequently, and brutally, physi- cally abused by an alcoholic stepfather. His young, female therapist was interning at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital where Dean admitted himself for detoxification and treatment. Although she could empathize with his childhood experiences, it was difficult for her to understand his choice of a life that revolved around hanging out in bars at truck stops, and she was intimidated by his antagonistic, con- frontational, bristling presentation. They met, unsatisfactorily, a few times before he left the hospital against medical advice. On reflection, the therapist realized that her judgments about Dean's personality and lifestyle had combined with her being intimidated to create both a desperate desire to be effective and a fear of being alone in a room with him. She had alternated between being too familiar and too dis- tant. The experience heightened the therapist's awareness of some of her inadequacies. By increasing her exposure to clients in the alcohol276 L. M. Leitner and A. J. Faidley rehabilitation program, carefully observing their interactions with her and with one another, and reflecting on her experiences with them, she became more comfortable with persons whose lives had been quite foreign to her and improved her ability to establish an optimal thera- peutic distance with such persons. Subtle Violence. Most clinicians can see-the impact of overt physical and sexual violence on the psychological processes of victims. How- ever, one’s basic processes as a meaning maker can be invalidated in innumerable ways. Any disconfirmation is violent to the extent it rips into a person's process of creatively encountering life. In many ways, the most devastating disconfirmations are those that are difficult to recognize, In the midst of struggling to come to terms with invalida- tion, we also believe that we were invalidated because the basic pro- cess of how we create meanings is flawed. Anytime the process of meaning making (as opposed to the specific contents of one’s mean- ings) is disconfirmed, serious damage is done to the person. Leitner and Faidley (1995) used the term “subtle violence” to describe this. For example, Joan, the wife of a politician, was referred for therapy due to longstanding feclings of self-doubt and panic attacks in pub- lic situations. She was raised in an upper class household in which everything and everyone was “proper” and unemotional. When she would act naturally and spontaneously as a child, she was informed, in strict yet polite terms, that those sorts of behaviors were not ac- ceptable in this family. Joan was confronted with a serious dilemma. Her spontaneous encountering of the world was being invalidated; however, she did not experience her parents’ behavior as justifying how devastated she felt. After all, they were not beating her, yelling at her, or overtly punishing her. She concluded that her spontane- ous attempts to engage the world must be flawed. In other words, the process of her construing, rather than the content of her con- structs, was being called into question, (Leitner & Faidley, 1995, pp. 300-301) Recognizing and handling subtle violence draws on the creativity of the therapist. The client often accepts the implicit messages behind the disconfirmations as real; thus, the therapist easily can miss in- stances of subtle violence. Once recognized, the therapist has to find ways of raising the issues so that the client can see them as devastat- ing injuries. All too often, therapists fail to see subtle violence and therefore miss the opportunity to touch the fabric of a person's life in a way that transforms the client. Many clients, damaged by subtle violence that has not been recognized and creatively used by theCreativity in Experiential PCP 277 therapist, are told that the source of their problems is in their bio- chemistry as it is the only way the therapist has of making sense of the client's distress. Client Strength and Creativity. Rosenbaum (1996) told a story about he and his wife fixing their car. When they had finished the repairs, they had a couple of pieces left over and decided to take the car to a me- chanic to see what was not quite right. They drove the car to the mechanic and, after looking at the engine, he told them that they were either lying or teasing him as the car would not drive in that condi- tion. Rosenbaum told this story in the context of discussing a case with a psychoanalytic therapist and a cognitive behavioral therapist, both of whom were focusing on all of the things wrong with the client. Only Rosenbaum saw the strengths of this human being; although afterward the other clinicians sheepishly admitted that there were strengths in the client, these strengths were not a part of their case conceptualization. Clients invent solutions to the most insolvable of life problems. Traditional mental health professionals often see these solutions as symptoms. Clients have often bought into the professional/societal construction of these symptoms as nothing but pathology to be ex- cised. However, these solutions have allowed clients to confront life in the best way possible (Leitner, in press). There is strength in these solutions; there is courage to face terrible events and experiences, and persistence in reminding the self that life has been cruel, unfair, or brutal. Therapists who are not creative énough to appreciate this are not honoring profound aspects of their clients’ persons. In so doing, they fail their clients. For example, Molly had some unusual construals about the “continuum of life” that resulted in her having an extremely difficult time engaging in household tasks—laundry, cleaning the bathtub, paying the bills—on a regular basis. At some level it seemed futile to her to do things that would just need to be done again shortly, in an unending, repetitive cycle. Molly puzzled over her own behav- ior and variously accused herself of being lazy, sloppy, or “crazy.” The therapist did not personally entertain these as possible explana- tions of Molly’s behavior, nor did she settle for labeling Molly as obsessive-compulsive. She reminded Molly that she performed re- sponsibly in a good job and earned a very respectable salary. Together they explored the ways in which Molly's “symptoms” made possible some areas of success in her life. Her symptoms both expressed and contained the futility she had felt as she grew up with an unpredict- able, explosive, abusive alcoholic father, whose favorite comment to his children was, “You don’t have the brains of a piss-ant.”278 1. M. Leitner and A. J. Faidley Client Growth. Clients, like their therapists, are processes of growth, evolution, and development. However, all too often, therapists see clients as static, unchanging entities. (As a matter of fact, one of our problems with the DSM is its tendency to construe client processes in frozen, static ways.) If clients rely on the therapist as a validating agent for the process of psychotherapy (Landfield, 1988) and the therapist cannot see the ways that clients change, the client is in trouble. Kelly (1955/1991) argued that applying a construct of change to one’s life is an important precursor of psychological growth (see Leitner, 1984, for some empirical support for this position). If the therapist is a major source of affirmation of the process of therapy and cannot construe the client as changing and growing, it will be very difficult for the client to see the self as an evolving process. In other words, the thera- pist needs to be able to see, and to help the client see, the continued evolution of the client’s experiential life occurring in psychotherapy. In the midst of much pain and confusion, the client may not discern subtle signs of change that could be both the basis for increased hope and the ground for additional growth. For example, a seriously dis- turbed man whose typical experience was to be plagued by the belief that others were “out to get” him, mentioned to his therapist, "Some- times I wonder if I’m too suspicious.” This might go by as an off-hand comment or it might be seen by the perceptive therapist as a marvel- ous step for this individual to make from being subsumed by a para- noid experience to being able to ponder his own thoughts and behav- iors and speculate about them. Only if it is recognized as the latter, will the therapist and client be able to expand upon it productively. Summarizing, experiential personal construct psychotherapy de- mands that therapists creatively encounter each client, beginning with an initial diagnosis and continuing throughout the therapy process. A therapist limited in creativity fails his or her clients. Morally, then, therapists have an obligation to enhance their creativity. The following section briefly describes ways of facilitating therapist creativity. Enhancing Therapist Creativity in the Therapy Relationship Kelly (1955/1991) defined creativity as a cycle in the process of mean- ing making, the creativity cycle. This cycle begins with the loosening of one’s constructs. When meanings loosen, they become more elastic, variable, indistinct, and the world is grasped vaguely, with events interplaying with one another in ways that seem illogical or nonsensi- cal to others. The loosening process results in new ways of seeing theCreativity in Experiential PCP 279 world, and thus, new ways of construing experience. Something that was previously beyond or “other than” the self is admitted as a possi- bility. We play with this possibility. It becomes more firm, organized, consistent, clear. The creativity cycle draws to a close when these new, tightened meanings are experimented with and validated in the world. Most persons are less creative than they could be because they struggle with one of the components of the creativity cycle (Leitner & Pfenninger, 1994). Thus, the first step in increasing therapist creativity is careful, honest, reflection on where one’s relative weaknesses in the cycle lie. Without such honest self-reflection, creative growth in the therapist will be limited. Many of the suggestions below are designed to aid one component of the cycle, although some aid both components. Aloneness. Making time to be alone is important for loosening our con- struing system. The vital components of our meaning making involve interpersonal relations (Leitner & Faidley, 1995). Other people are continuously affirming and disconfirming our meanings in all of our interactions with them. Our newer and looser meanings, shaky, fuzzy, and unclear, are particularly vulnerable to invalidation when first em- ployed in interactions with others. If others are confused about these new meanings because the meanings are tentative and indistinct, they may tend to suggest ways the newer constructions are “wrong.” As a result, creativity can be fostered by systematically spending time alone. By structuring regular times for aloneness, therapists can nurture and develop newer meanings without the potential disconfirmations asso- ciated with interpersonal interactions. , To the extent that aloneness is dreaded or viewed as a harsh ne- cessity of life, we will not be able to use the alone time most cre- atively. Rather, being alone needs to be valued for the growth and richness it can bring to our lives. If we are lonely, as opposed to alone, our discomfort with aloneness will pervade the experience and block the fertility of the creativity cycle. Further, as we develop novel and untested ways of approaching life, we need to be comfortable with the aloneness we may experience before others can understand our new meanings. Not surprisingly, many people need to do some personal work exploring and resolving their fears of loneliness before they can appreciate the potential of aloneness. Interaction. Although, as we have mentioned, interactions with others around new, loosely formed meanings often result in invalidations of those meanings, some relationships or interactions can validate loosening. A longtime valued friend, a partner, a mentor with whom one feels unconditionally accepted, can provide conversations that | | | | i280 L, M. Leitner and A, J. Faidley stimulate and elaborate our creativity. An interactional process in which each participant plays off of the loose construing of the other may accelerate the creativity cycle and can take it in unanticipated direc- tions. Attending conferences, interacting with colleagues, and partici- pating in continuing education opportunities can also encourage creativity by exposing us to new alternatives and challenging our thinking. Imagining. Being alone can be most productive when we allow our- selves to imagine, fantasize, or daydream. Fantasies suspend “contact with reality.” They also are important messages to us, from us, about us (Leitner, in press). By giving ourselves permission to fantasize, we foster both creative loosening and creative tightening. The delimiting of reality concerns as we fantasize encourages the loosening. As we separate construing from the external world, constructs are free to shift, change, and develop. As we then attempt to understand the implica- tions of these imaginings for our life, construing is tightened. In other words, exploring why we have certain fantasies (and what we have discovered about ourselves through our fantasies) can lead to ever- deeper truths about our experiential reality. In contrast to the traditional training models of an objective and authoritarian therapist, therapists who can take time between sessions to fantasize about their clients may begin to develop newer ways of experiencing the clients’ dilemmas. This is particularly so if, after fan- tasizing, the therapist can step back and reflect on what the fantasies are communicating to the therapist about the relationship with the client. Further, therapists who can fantasize about their personal lives may uncover creative approaches to their struggles that can be used with clients. After all, the struggle over connection (and meaning) ver- sus isolation (and emptiness) applies to the therapist's life as much as to the client’s (Leitner, 1995), Finally, inasmuch as all fantasies involve the loosening of meanings, therapists who can allow themselves to daydream about any topic are enhancing the creative loosening of meanings in general. This general loosening may help them be more creative in the specific arena of psychotherapy. Passion. Creativity also can blossom when you are doing what you have a passion for rather than doing what you have to in order to earn a paycheck. Activity invested with passion can promote personal growth, and hence, promote creativity. When we are passionate, we are more present, more alive, more involved. The relationship with our passion (whether a person or a meaningful activity) is “awe-ful” (Leitner & Faidley, 1995). When we are passionate, we are a creativeCreativity in Experiential PCP 281 process rather than a mere existence. Applied to psychotherapy, we believe that therapists who have a passion for their work are more invested, more creative, more vitally engaged. More fundamentally, therapists who can have a passion for their clients, in other words, love their clients (in the mature, nonpossessive love that is love at its best) may be able to resonate with their clients’ experiences so that optimal therapeutic distance is maintained. In contrast, if less passion is invested in the occupation (or the clients), how can we be more creative in it? As an important aside, one impact of the managed care and manualized treatment movement is to reduce many practitioners’ creative passion for the field. Psychotherapy, both science and art, is impoverished when either the science or the art is minimized in its application. : Trying on Roles. All of us have a community of selves (Mair, 1977), different aspects of self that we choose from at different times. Freeing ourselves to play with different ways of being in different situations can foster the loosening necessary in the creativity cycle. When we play, we are less concerned with whatever constraints reality puts on us, This reduced correspondence between our meanings and the ex- ternal world has already been associated with creative loosening. After experimenting with an aspect of ourselves, we then can evaluate whether we found this role more useful than other ways of being. This assessment is the creative tightening associated with role-playing. It is not surprising that many forms of psychotherapy encourage role- playing exercises. However, role-playing does not have to be confined to the therapy room to facilitate therapist creativity. We can choose to play a role that takes us considerably beyond what is familiar to us and results in our experiencing the external world in completely different ways. At the same time, we may also have completely new internal experiences. For example, we might choose to role-play an alcoholic (either in ses- sion or between sessions) as one way of creating meanings that will help therapeutically engage such persons. In other words, we can use role-playing as a way of reaching deep into the self and accessing constructs at very low levels of awareness. We can engage in creative tightening by evaluating these role-playing experiences at a later time. By systematically experimenting with our experience (Viney, 1981), we can develop new ways of touching others. Reading and the Arts. Obviously, great works of art, music, and litera- ture are creative endeavors. When we expose ourselves to such works we have the opportunity to glimpse the creative process of the author.282 LM, Leitner and A. J. Faidley As we open ourselves to absorb and appreciate the nuances of the creative genius, we also may become more creative in our own life. More fundamentally, many of these great artistic creations invite us to meet the world in ways other than those that can be expressed in the discursive symbolism of language only. Language consists of indi- vidual units with independent meanings arranged linearly. However, much of our experience involves impressions and emotions that are present simultaneously, that overlap or nest within one another. The nondiscursive symbolism of art and music touches this aspect of our existence because it, too, conveys its meanings in a simultaneous, inte- gral, presentation. Such alternative constructions are vital if we are to truly intuit the process of the client in psychotherapy (Guthrie, 1991). Many novels, movies, and plays can help us learn more about the process through which others have navigated the perils of life. How- ever, even if a particular novel tells us little about how others have creatively solved life dilemmas, any fictional reading allows us to with- draw from reality somewhat. As discussed above, this withdrawal from reality is a part of the process of creative loosening. Therapists who allow themselves to explore this aspect of living are likely to be more creative than those who are cut off from the arts and literature. Balance. In a similar vein, living a balanced life enhances creativity; relationships, work, play, and spirituality are all nurtured. Balance in our lives allows us to develop many aspects of the self simultaneously. These simultaneous elaborations may increase the likelihood that con- structions formed in one arena of life will be transferred to another. More importantly, balanced living allows for the process of meaning making in one area to incubate while we are actively developing the meaning system in another area. During this incubation period, the meanings we have created are not subjected to confirmation or dis- confirmation, and this facilitates creative loosening. Thus, therapists who work excessively may be limiting their creativity and, simulta- neously, their ability to transform their clients’ struggles. Time Pressures. Reducing time pressure also can facilitate creativity. When we are under deadline pressures and need to decide on an ap- proach to the world now, we typically grasp the best solution we can based upon the meanings currently available to us. We do this rather than take the time to create alternative meanings that may or may not. be better than those immediately available. This tendency may be par- ticularly strong when we are faced with imminent deadlines with im- portant or threatening ramifications. However, if we are less anxious about finding solutions right away, we often can let newer ways ofCreativity in Experiential PCP 283 experiencing life emerge through creative loosening. Most sophisti- cated therapies, from psychoanalysis through humanistic/existential approaches, include ways of reducing time pressures on clients. Once again, this is an area where the current fad of short-term, solution- focused treatments may force therapist and client into solving life's dilemmas less creatively. Process. Focusing on the process of how we live life gives more direct access to meaning creation than focusing on the product. Currently psychotherapy often is limited by focusing on the content of the mean- ings a client has created (the product in the arena of meaning making) rather than the process of creating the meanings. To the extent that we focus on the content, we are perverting psychotherapy into an intellec- tual, problem-solving exercise rather than a transformative emotional experience. As mentioned earlier, music is a nondiscursive form of symbolism. To listen to the music of the client's story is to focus on the process of being, to touch the essence of the intuitive, sensing, and emotional life, We then have the hope of our core process connecting with the core process of the client in a deeply significant relationship. Through this relationship, we can share fundamental meanings and have them validated. In the midst of the discourse of therapy, but beyond the words, the process and pattern of relating is an integral part of the healing process (Guthrie, 1991). Bugental (1987) made a similar point when he advised therapists to de-emphasize the words and listen to the music of their clients’ stories. For example, a therapist who construes a client as “stubborn” is more content focused and understands little of the process behind the client’s “stubbornness.” The therapist may be stuck attempting to make the client less “stubborn.” Seeing the “stubbornness” as an attempt to assert one's independence in the face of powerful others may help the therapist engage the client in more productive ways. The therapist may see the ways that a problematic construct, at a process level, actually affirms, respects, and protects core aspects of identity (Tschudi, 1977). Judgments. Kelly’s (1955/1991) definition of creativity involves more than merely creating new meanings through a process of loosening and tightening. Creativity only occurs when the cycle ends with new constructs being validated. In other words, my new meanings have to be affirmed in interactions in the world, Being able to make judg- ments about the adequacy or usefulness of meanings is also an impor- tant aspect of creativity. However, inasmuch as judging tends to be associated more with creative tightening than creative loosening,284 LM. Leitner and A. J. Faidley suspending or delaying of judgments until later in the creative process can enhance creativity. Judging too early can hinder creativity as much as not judging at all. An incident related by Al Landfield, describing an experience with his professor, George Kelly, nicely illustrates this point. Landfield approached Kelly with a research idea that was just beginning to germinate. After excitedly describing it to Kelly, he waited with anticipation for his mentor’s response. Kelly replied, “I'm not sure if I understand what you are getting at, but I can see the wheels turning and that’s good.” Landfield, affirmed by this response, con- tinued to brainstorm the idea and eventually a project was launched. He later explained that it would have been quite a different experi- ence if Kelly had instead said something like, “I don’t get it; it’s confusing.” In other words, by delaying judgment, Kelly fostered Land- field’s creativity. Client Growth. One of the premises of experiential personal con- structivism is that clients experience a continuous process of growth, change, and evolution. Thus, an explicit focus on the question, “How has the client grown this week?” can enhance therapist creativity (and a therapist's ability to recognize client creativity). Focusing on’ this question may force the therapist to see the new approaches to life being tentatively formed by the client. Hopefully, it also will push the therapist to nurture these new meanings in creative ways. The Role of Creativity in the Therapist’s Personal Life Although these ways of enhancing creativity clearly involve the thera- pist’s personal life, we have discussed them in terms of the ways they may help therapists be more creative in the therapy room. We have said nothing about the more general role of creativity in the personal life of the therapist. Based upon what we have said thus far, one could conclude that, as long as the therapist is creative in the therapy room, there is no real need for creativity in the therapist’s personal life. How- ever, we believe that general creativity in the personal life of the therapist is a vital part of the process of therapy itself. It is very difficult to engage in life-changing psychotherapy as a therapist unless one is creative in one’s personal life. There are several reasons for our view. Therapy as a Journey. As can be inferred from our discussion thus far, therapy is not a treatment applied to a client. Rather, it is a journey that therapist and client embark on together as coexplorers and co- creators of the reality that is emerging between them. A therapist withoutCreativity in Experiential PCP 285 personal experience with the ways that creative encounter can trans- form even the most horrible life issues will be unable to play a role in creating a reality in the therapy room that allows for life-changing growth to occur. To put it simply, if we are'not creative in our own lives, how can we be creative as therapists? And, if we are not creative as therapists, how can life-changing therapy happen in our presence? Hypocrisy. Clients, often having been subjected to the most subtle, yet devastating, interpersonal disconfirmations, are quite sensitive to the person of the therapist. What are the implications of the therapist try- ing to foster client creativity while not being creative in his or her personal life? First, without some personal creativity, the therapist may be less able to see the benefits of creativity for the client. More im- portantly, inasmuch as creating new interpersonal realities is a risky, threatening, and potentially terrifying task (Leitner, 1985), clients may sense the contradiction between the therapist not risking in this man- ner while trying to get them to risk. Often such a contradiction causes therapy to stagnate until the therapist develops the same courage that is being asked of the client. In this regard, inasmuch as we hope our clients come to value creative living for its own sake, we also need to appreciate it in our lives for its own sake, aside from the ways it helps us in the therapy room. Elaborating Various Self-Constructions. When we are being creative in our personal lives, we are elaborating various ways of interacting with the external world (various ways of being). Our lives become richer and more complex as we create these alternative ways of being, and there are more alternative parts of us to draw upon as we attempt to connect with clients. Thus, we are able to form relationships with a broader spectrum of clients as well as able to connect with more di- verse parts of clients. The greater our connection with various parts of the client’s self, the more personal integration and transformation can occur in therapy. Humility. Finally, we would like to mention the ways that therapist creativity can help therapists be humble in the face of client despair and change. An integral aspect of creativity involves the number of creations that do not work well. In other words, we all find ways of encountering reality that we have to abandon, no matter how impor- tant they are to us. Thus, we all can appreciate the disconfirmation felt with creative failures, as well as the desire to hang onto our creations long after they have been invalidated. 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