The relationship of somatic awareness to creative process: An experimental phenomenological study

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate how, if at all, participants, in a specially designed course, experience and understand the relationship between somatic awareness and their creative processes, and (2) to ascertain the value and effectiveness of this course, which emphasizes creative and somatic awareness processes and seeks to provide an atmosphere conducive to enhancing and fostering creativity. The researcher/teacher designed and implemented, at a university, a semester-long course and research project, in which seven women participated. The women, ages 20-51, were encouraged to do a daily practice of exercises designed to increase conscious awareness of sensations in their bodies. These included (among others) conscious breathing, walking meditations, Authentic Movement, Body-Mind Centering, Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement, yoga related to chakras, and theatre improvisational games. Concurrently, the course encouraged participants to become consciously aware of their creative processes. The researcher utilized data from pre and post questionnaires, written responses regarding exercises, essays regarding creativity, autobiographical essays, and exit interviews. Data were presented via individual profiles of the participants, mostly in their own words, structured around these questions: (1) How do students understand their own creative process? (2) How do they experience creative blocks? (3) What were the effects of this course? (4) What connection, if any, do participants perceive between body awareness and creativity? and (5) Does being a member of a group that comes together to focus on somatics and creativity affect one\u27s creative life? The researcher found participants shared many common themes concerning their experiences of (a) creativity, (b) somatics, and (c) the relationship of somatics to creative process. Themes of self-knowledge, movement from inside to outside, power, energy, receptivity, heightened states of awareness, and change were the most prevalent, dynamic ways in which participants experienced the three categories to be related. The researcher concluded that somatic awareness seemed to be a means of enhancing and fostering creativity for the participants of this study, and that courses which value creativity and kinesthetic ways of knowing would be valuable in general college curricula as well as in arts curricula