Marianela Medrano-Marra

As psychologist and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it, creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. It is “a process by which a symbolic domain in the culture is changed. New songs, new ideas, new machines are what creativity is about.” Everything in our surroundings is the result of inventiveness, of creativity. Csikszentmihalyi’s idea is that the creative process emerges in five steps: preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation and elaboration.

When we take a close look at what we do in counseling, we find the above five steps also, and we see the interfaith of creativity and the counseling process. At the core of the preparation step is awareness —becoming immersed, consciously or not, in a set of problematic issues that are interesting, that arouse curiosity, and that are usually the impetus that moves clients to seek us out. Most counselors strive to bring to clients’ awareness what is happening in their surroundings and how they are impacting what is happening. In the interaction of our observations and their awareness, incubation begins. We want to awaken clients’ sensitivity to the ways they interact with their environment, or to use Thich Nah Hanh’s language, how they are “interbeing” with the world.

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