NURTURING CREATIVITY

Where does creativity come from? Is it an innate gift, something awakened by an encounter or encouragement, or a capacity that all of us can learn to develop? And why does it sometimes emerge most powerfully from difficult or disrupted beginnings?

Novelist Esther Freud and dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta followed very different paths to creative lives. In conversation with psychotherapist Julia Samuel, they explore the influence of childhood, family, imagination and adversity, as well as the discipline required to turn talent into lasting work.

Can creativity offer a way of understanding or surviving painful experience? How important is the person who first recognises a gift? Can imagination be stimulated, confidence taught and talent nourished? And what do children need if their creativity is to flourish rather than disappear as they grow up?