Creativity and the Mind

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