Writer’s block can also be called creative block. It is a phenomenon involving the temporary “loss” of the capacity to keep generating content, generally through a lack of inspiration or creativity. Creative thinking can be trained to increase a person’s creative responsiveness, but it can also be blocked easily by what we do.

Every child is born with enormous creative potential. According to the psychologist António Valentim, all of a child’s senses are on alert to take in sounds, rhythms, shapes, colours, smells and more. A child’s creative capacity comes from the experiences they have with objects, with people and with real events.

But as we grow up, wrapped in the paradigms and moral rules society imposes, our capacities become limited, and our creative confidence is taken from us. Although much of our imagination, intuition and intelligence is innate, we are trained in various ways not to use them [Junkins, 2016].

Creative blocks appear because as we grow up we work on creativity less and less; we stop being “free spirits” and start living under rules, paradigms and stereotypes. The human brain tends to simplify complex elements, falling into the comfort zone rather than going in search of new possibilities. Creative blocks do not only make it harder to produce new ideas, they also contribute to a problematic situation that is not properly assessed and for which no strategies are found [Tschimmel, 2010].

Table with a drawing, markers and a mug

Different types of block have been identified: perceptual, cultural and intellectual, emotional, and individual and organisational. So that you can understand what each of them means in detail, I will go through them one by one.

Perceptual blocks

Perception is the act of understanding, of distinguishing objects, places, everything around us. That understanding, however, is not simply a reception of information but a perception steered through our sensory organs, which allows us to orient ourselves in the world [Tschimmel, 2010]. Our brain develops mechanisms based on our experiences and tends to choose what it knows, what is familiar, which shows up in perception and in searching, but which narrows our range and inhibits original ways of solving things.

Cultural / intellectual blocks

All children enjoy learning and being explorers, but most human beings are deprived of creativity, even at school. Cultural barriers arise essentially from social and institutional rules. Goleman, Kaufman and Ray, in Creative Spirit, talk about Amabile’s “creativity killers”. They are:

  • constant vigilance and observation of the child during an activity, which makes them withdraw and dampens their creative impulses;
  • evaluation, which makes children worry about other people’s judgement, wanting to impress them rather than being motivated and satisfied themselves;
  • reward, which can be a good stimulus to creativity but in excess becomes a suppression of pleasure;
  • competition, where time and pace are always different, because we want to win, the pressure duly drives us to despair;
  • excessive control, from teaching household and school tasks in a detailed, meticulous way, which makes the child feel they are wasting time by trying to explore an original path;
  • restricting choices, when children should be choosing the path that sparks their curiosity and passion rather than parents steering them towards what they want;
  • and finally pressure: forcing children to learn and often placing expectations on them in areas they are not aware of will only produce the opposite of the intended effect, creating feelings of aversion.

Essentially, in cultural blocks, also known as intellectual ones, we tend to analyse our ideas too early, blocking their flow at the outset rather than giving them a free path, through the critical eye and the desire for a quick answer. By choosing the easiest route, we quickly put other people’s ideas “on the table” instead of our own.

According to Goleman, Kaufman & Ray [1992], time is unfortunately one of the worst killers of creativity. Today’s society lives at the pace of hurry and stress, where everything was wanted yesterday and children are brought up from early on to the sound of “hurry up”, “we are in a rush”. Since “intrinsic motivation is the key to a child’s creativity, the main element in cultivating it is time”, unlimited time allows the child to enter a natural flow of creativity and pleasure.

Individual and organisational blocks

Individually, we create stereotypes for particular situations. Proctor [2005] points out that the biggest blocks are individual and organisational mindsets. When a human being creates a strategy that works, they tend to use it in a similar, near-identical scenario, settling for the basics rather than looking for alternative, original answers. Resistance to change creates dysfunction in illogical reasoning.

Emotional blocks

Emotions are a set of reactions, of differing duration and intensity, that help us make sense of what is around us. They help us perceive good and bad, what matters and what is not worth it, and they take us back to good or bad experiences.

So our perception changes according to our state of mind. Anger, anxiety, insecurity, low self-esteem and even love are emotional blocks that affect our perception and interpretation. Unstable emotional states, generally caused by pressures, worries, financial problems and so on, create imbalances that stop us thinking clearly.

Identifying blocks in creativity helps us understand creative thinking.

Knowledge can also constitute a block to creativity, though, since too much of it leads us to analyse facts rather than question them. People who work creatively are endlessly curious; they question everything they find and explore new paths and solutions. Even so, the creative self needs encouraging and motivating on the one hand, and blocks need identifying in order to reach more creative solutions on the other.

If this topic has caught your interest, I recommend:

  • Moreira, J. (2016). O objecto como impulsionador do Pensamento criativo. Porto: ESAD, Matosinhos. Master’s thesis
  • Tschimmel, K. (2010). Sapiens e Demens no Pensamento Criativo do Design. Aveiro: Universidade de Aveiro, Departamento de Comunicação e Arte. Doctoral thesis
  • Proctor, T. (2005). Creative problem solving for managers: developing skills for decision making and innovation, 2a Ed. New York: Routledge.