Download Author: Rothenberg, Albert, M.D.

25 eBooks available.

Time, Space, and Causality

Having presented the evidence and described the mirror-image processes; the task is now to understand and to establish the nature and extent of what has been achieved. Have we indeed discovered the cause or causes of creativity? How do the mirror-image processes operate, precisely, to produce creations? Considering the matter of arousal in the creative process emphasized earlier, what is the evidence for such arousal and how does it function in created products? Are there other qualities of the mirror-image processes, beside their arousal function, that lead to the production of creations?

Goddess Emergent: Creative Process and Created

Freedom itself resembles creation—it always consists of separateness along with bringing together or connectedness. As human beings, we are neither free nor independent unless we observe, and are mindful of, our contacts and connections with others and with nature. And we must be mindful of our intrinsic separateness, uniqueness, and individuality. When we glimpse the goddess emerging from the head of the creator, it must remind us of the nature of our freedom.

Janusian Thinking as a Psychological Process

Modes of cognition, affects, psychological structures, and dynamisms, bear some resemblance to janusian thinking and, in order to establish the psychological dimensions of the thought process distinctly, it is necessary to consider several of them. In this chapter, I shall discuss the following: Jungian psychology, dialectical thinking, dualistic thinking, conflict, and ambivalence.

Madness and Glory

Phillipe Pinel, the doctor who became the world’s first psychiatrist, struck the chains and shackles from the mentally ill in the midst of the French Revolution. Patients were living in hideous conditions, exposed to the public as freaks, and received no useful treatment. A patient in the Bicêtre asylum/jail, former ministerial assistant Guillaume Lalladiere, manages, unchained, to escape. Hiding from hospital attendant pursuers in the streets at night, he inadvertently learns of a plot against the leaders of the Revolution. He goes through the rebellion ruled streets of Paris and tries to give warning to responsible government colleagues and others but no-one except Dr. Pinel, when Guillaume is returned to the hospital, believes him. With Dr. Pinel’s treatment, as well as the support of Genevieve, Guillaume’s love, and Jean-Luc, a canny young boy, he improves. But the plotters learn he has confided everything to Dr. Pinel and both are threatened with arrest and death. (332 pp.)

Homospatial Thinking

One function of the homospatial process is to operate in conjunction with the janusian process in order to produce integrated aesthetic entities, and scientific discoveries and formulations.

The Emerging Goddess: The Creative Process in Art, Science, and Other Fields

Why study creativity and creative processes? We are at a point in history where we possess far more systematic information about psychological approaches and psychological functioning—small as it still is in an absolute sense—than any of the thinkers possessed who approached this topic earlier. The theory of creativity and of the creative process presented here pertains in one respect to an enduring scientific achievement of Freud’s, the understanding of the structure of dreams, and it is consistent both with psychoanalytic knowledge about personality function and with experimental psychological and psychiatric approaches. Now, with our knowledge and tools regarding the creative process, we can contribute to man’s deep understanding of himself. (756 pp.)

Homospatial Thinking as a Psychological Process

Distinctions made between homospatial thinking and primary process (spacelessness, condensation, and displacement) should also clarify the differentiation from psychopathological modes of thought, especially those in schizophrenia.

Creation of a Poem

I will attempt to illustrate the psychological processes involved in creativity through the analysis of the creation of a poem.

The Creative Process as the Mirror Image of the Dream

As the mirror image of dreaming, creativity is one of the highest, if not the highest, kind of adaptive mental process. It is not regressive, irrational, a concrete type of thinking, or even a radically altered state of consciousness. The creator, in full consciousness, purposefully attempts to produce the most socially valuable products possible and he uses the highest mental function he possesses.