George D. Demos

Managing the "Post Partum" Depression in Creative Individuals

* Appears in the new text Creativity , edited by J. L. Gowan, G. D. Demos and E. P. Torrance, John Wiley and Sons, N. Y., 1967. The phenomenon of &dquo;post-partum depression&dquo; in biological creativity is well-known, but little understood, and with less knowledge regarding its psychodynamics. A depressed period after childbirth is not rare in women, and a similar but lesser depression after coitus is common in men. To be sure

Career Planning for Gifted Individuals; the Self

For the individual who wishes to know his &dquo;self,&dquo; selfunderstanding is a lifelong process, with an &dquo;ideal&dquo; comprehension of self always remaining on the distant horizon as a receding goal. Yet, decisions based on self-knowledge must be made throughout life by everyone. And, just as the executive often is forced to make his decisions before he has &dquo;all&dquo; of the facts (he would prefer to have) in his possession, so must each of us make decisions with the data we have on hand.

Career Planning for Gifted Individuals Introduction

Extending this concept of many aptitudes still further, the authors developed the RATING SCALE OF VOCATIONAL APTITUDES (4) which consists of items that are classified into twenty categories: administrative, animal, artistic, athletic, clerical, commercial, computational, creative, dramatic, executive, literary, manual, mechanical, musical, organizing, plant, scholastic, scientific, service, and socializing.

The Counselor and the Creative Child

we can learn a good deal by looking at the personality of the creative child, and then discovering what aspects can best be promoted by guidance. The first point to note about the creative child is that he is usually well-adjusted, mature for his age, fully-functioning, and responsible. He is in this respect opposite of the delinquent. Dr. Paul Torrance, of the University of Minnesota, upon being asked, &dquo;What makes a child creative?&dquo; replied: &dquo;Anything that makes him more alive.&dquo; This zest for living and acme of mental health and maturity will aid what dent in bright, creative children. Whatever guidance can do to help a child to better mental heatth and maturity will aid what creativity he may possess. It should, perhaps, he noted that in advocating guidance for children, we do not imply that guidance will produce creativity, but only that it will bring it out and make it manifest. It is probable that most of our educational aids to children merely preserve rather than produce their creative functions. Children are naturally creative and only require the right atmosphere to manifest it. A second point for the counselor is to help the child to value. A child needs to value himself and to have his ideas valued before he can value others or their ideas. Counselors should therefore help children build a consistent value system the children’s not the counselors. The values a creative child builds may flow from his divergent thinking, and hence he may not wish to emulate grown-up models. This includes the counselors’ values, and as a result may cause problems, but it is important to remember that it is his values and not ours which are being built.