A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Arts University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Mnster of Arts in Clinical Psychology. September ~991 / The study aimed to examine the ego functioning of the creative child, with a view to testing theories of creative functioning. The development of these theories is reviewed from Freud'e writings at the beginning of the century to more current conceptions of Creativity as a function of ego proCeSses. The theories examined related to the ego functions of Tolerance of Ambiguity, Regression in the Service of the Ego and Empathy, all of which were hypothesised .a being employed to a greater degree by creative individuals. A theoretical conception of the autonomous 1 intellective and creative ego was developed according to Norma Haan's (1977) view of Constructivist Man. The ego function of 60 children (39 male and 21 female' batween the ages of 8 and 12 years were tested by having their mothers rate them on Haan's Q-sort of Ego Processes. A measure of Creativity was obtained using activities from the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance 1974) completed by the chiIdren. AnalysiS for the results failed to show any significant support for the hypotheses concerning the 3 main Ego Functions. Of the other Ego functions also exmined using the Haan instrument, only that of Substitution showed a significant (and negative) correlation with Creativity. This suggested that (a) children employing this ego function to a significant degree tend not to be creative and (b) Mothers valuing substitution highly may tend to stifle creativity in their children by their expectations and parenting styles. The failure to find significant support for the hypothesis is attributed to Ca) possible incomplete measures of Creativity and (b) the Mother's difficulty in using the ego rating instrument in an unbiased way rather than rating for Racial desirability and perceived expectations of the research on Certain key functions. It was concluded that trained professionals may be better equipped to accurately assess ego functioning. A discussion of the results and 1imitations of the study follows with a consideration of methodological problems in the measurement of both Personality and Creativity. suggestions are made for further research. No strong conclusions can be drawn regarding the validity of the theories discussed but they are felt to be very useful formulations for work in the educational and clinical fields.