This article is an introduction to and systematic exposition of the key insights of cognitive psychologist Howard Gruber (Teachers College, Columbia University), whose "deeply phenomenological" case study approach, emphasizing the development of a "theory of the individual" for creative figures of great stature, has led to important discoveries about the nature-the how and not the whyof creative work.
In his explorations of the world, the individual finds out what needs doing. In his attempts to do some of it, he finds out what he can do and what he cannot. He also comes to see what he need not do. From the intersection of these possibilities there emerges a new imperative, his sense of what he must do. How "it needs" and "I can" give birth to "I must" remains enigmatic.
-Howard E. Gruber
Darwin on Man (with P. H. Barrett)
To live a creative life is one of the intentions of a creative person.
-Doris B. Wallace
Creative People at Work
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