Creativity And The Mind: Discovering The Genius Within

Blending leading scientific research with real life experiences, Creativity and the Mind helps readers unlock their creative potential and embrace alternate ways of thinking about everyday problems.

In this provocative book, acclaimed psychologists Thomas Ward, Ronald Finke, and Steven Smith eloquently portray the fascinating processes of the creative mind at work, and hand us the invaluable tools with which we can mine our most valued and important resource. Creativity - and the methods by which we can heighten it - has recently become the focus of a burgeoning and exciting new field in psychology. By skillfully blending this cutting-edge scientific research with the real-world experiences of humanity's most successful creative thinkers, this provocative book isolates the mechanisms by which our mind conceives innovative and creative ideas. Since all creative thoughts emerge from skillfully drawing upon the well of knowledge we already possess, this book tackles the very nature of this knowledge. As these astute authors convincingly argue, the same mental processes that help a chemist like Kary Mullis discover a revolutionary new scientific principle or inspire an artist like Beethoven to create a marvelous symphony underlie the host of creative endeavors we all undertake. This inspiring book applies these basic tenets to a rich variety of creative pursuits, including engineering, design, writing, business, science, art, and even the challenges of our everyday lives. We learn how best to combine and play with the images, words, and concepts that spark fertile new ideas and lead to ever more impressive creative leaps.|'Creativity and the Mind' is one of very few books that combines an account of serious theory and research on the psychology of creativity with a presentation that is accessible to anyone. Before, readers often has a choice between dry, abstruse theories and readable books composed of fluff. This book offers the reader a real chance to understand creativity and improve his or her own creative-thinking skills.