Summary
Highlights
Professor Angie Titchen introduces her story of creating conditions for human flourishing, emphasizing three key messages. She and Brendan have developed a worldview called 'critical creativity' for practice development, research, and education in health and social care. Initially, human flourishing was defined as maximizing potential through turbulence; more recently, it has been refined to include framing coexisting energies, embodying contrasts, embracing the known and unknown, achieving stillness and harmony, and giving/receiving loving kindness.
Angie recounts her personal experience in 1994 when, deep in doctoral data analysis, a profound sadness led her to languish. She found resurgence by reading 'Women Who Run with Wolves,' which inspired her to connect with her deep, instinctual self and strive for wholeness. To achieve this, she embarked on an alternative holiday in Greece, dancing, singing, and creating landscape art, experiencing a profound sense of flourishing and dissolving boundaries with the universe. Here, she connected with other 'Wild Women' who were facilitators in various fields.
Angie and her 'Wild Women' group met for five years, exploring creativity and applying it to navigate personal and professional turbulence. Working at the Royal College of Nursing, Angie sought to integrate creative imagination and artistic expression into international conferences, practice development schools, projects, and supervision programs. She also engaged in critical creative inquiries with colleagues like Brendan and Claire, fostering a spread of creativity within the professional environment. Her PhD work uncovered 'professional artistry processes' such as attunement, synchronicity, synergy, balance, and working with energy, which she developed in her work.
Angie outlines three conditions for human flourishing developed with Brendan: 1. Stillness in the landscape: This involves being open, still, and present in work and educational spaces, letting go of habituated ways of seeing, knowing, and doing to access tacit knowledge. 2. Becoming the rock: This means embodying one's beliefs, values, philosophy, and theories, being a living example of critical creativity and demonstrating authenticity. 3. Nurturing flowing and connecting: This is the most hidden and embodied condition, focusing on being rather than doing. It involves helping people navigate turbulence with loving kindness, encouraging them to flow into new physical and metaphysical spaces, and connecting inner knowledge with the outside world (micro to macro).
Angie illustrates these conditions through her work with Alex, a PhD researcher and social worker. Alex, initially stuck in a 'headspace,' spent a two-day retreat with Angie in the Cotswolds. Angie guided him to move from his head to his body and heart by suggesting a river walk. She created a ritual of moving from intellectual thought to a meditative, contemplative space by passing through a farm gate, encouraging him to be 'still in the landscape,' open his senses, and let go of thoughts. Angie modeled this by deeply observing nature, demonstrating 'being the rock' and 'nurturing flowing and connecting'.
During the walk, Angie wrote a poem and painted with river water, while Alex initially struggled with his thoughts. After repeated silent walks, Alex eventually opened up, expressing his turbulence and demonstrating new insights through creative expression with nature. He later described the experience as a gentle transition to a sense of ease and comfort, feeling truly present in the world and needing non-verbal or non-linear language to articulate the intensity of his transformation. This exemplifies the power of critical creativity in fostering human flourishing.