ABSTRACT
Projective research techniques are widely used in consumer research with the express intention of catching the respondent off guard, or they are at least used in an attempt to penetrate the conscious barrier and filter that the respondent may employ when they are asked direct questions. In this chapter, I take the perspective of a detective who is attempting to gather insightful and informative information, and I stress the role of creativity both in the design and performance of a projective procedure. I briefly discuss the general projective technique approach as it may be used in health and well-being research. However, the main thrust of the chapter will be to stress the creativity that is needed to develop projective research techniques and to suggest ways that such a creative perspective may be encouraged. Specifically, I consider the projective creativity session as a procedure that may be used in health research. In these sessions, a creativity wall, sometimes called a research wall, is used on which a group of participants are encouraged to draw, write, fix images, etc. around an image or word that has been selected as being neutral but that is related to a health-related topic that is at the centre of the project. As well as attempting to reveal deeper or sub-conscious reactions to the research topic, the production of the creativity wall facilitates conversation between participants as well as between participants and the moderator. I emphasise that adopting a creative perspective to a projective technique may allow the tailoring and adapting of these approaches to health-related enquiries and the generation of unique data.
