A phenomenological study of the need to create across the life span

This study was conducted to explore the felt experiences of a phenomenon referred to as the need to create among four men and women over 75 years of age who saw themselves as creative throughout their entire lives. The data was collected from personal, tape-recorded interviews, and a questionnaire of six specific questions. The analysis of material resulted in four literary portraits. The researcher's impressions and experiences of these four people were incorporated to create individual interpretations. The method used to analyze the data was phenomenological and heuristic. All the portraits and interpretations were reviewed by the participants to ensure validity before inclusion in this study. The findings that resulted from this study support the existence of a separate phenomenon in the process of creativity referred to as a need to create. Each of the chosen participants was able to identify this phenomenon and speak to it as a separately felt experience throughout their long lives. They spoke of this phenomenon in metaphorical terms and identified its inherent qualities. The first of which was that it never goes away. It can lie dormant for a period of time only to surface with a feeling of demand that it be expressed in some new form. Each of the participants chose a variety of ways to express this phenomenon ranging from classical art forms such as music, poetry, and painting to the formulation of theories. All four participants insisted that they made major decisions based upon the need to create but it was unknown if this phenomenon was the reason they moved toward self actualization. For all four participants, the impact of this phenomenon was felt throughout their lives, but none so severely as when the opportunity to express it was removed. It was described as a devastating loss. Among the most significant findings was the discovery that all of the participants saw themselves as creative and in fact referred to themselves as artists, musicians, and the like, from childhood on throughout their lives. The unique contribution that this research makes to the literature is that it offers first hand accounts on the need to create phenomenon over the course of a long life. There has been no research that has uniquely addressed this issue in the contextual frame of phenomenology until now.