Creativity Psychology

There is a complexity paradox that we all need to understand. We humans have a natural inclination towards connection, engagement, and creativity–all necessary skills to thrive in complexity. The problem is that the stress caused by uncertainty and ambiguity makes it difficult to tap into this inclination when we need it the most. This book offers a set of practices that help you not only understand complexity but actually hack into your own nervous system to bring your natural capacities back online.

For decades, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a fundamental matter: How did the people he was writing about learn their outlandish skill, whether it was drawing a nude or baking a sourdough loaf? In The Real Work, Gopnik apprentices himself to an artist, a dancer, a boxer, and even a driving instructor (from the DMV), among others, trying his late-middle-age hand at things he assumed were beyond him.

This overview discusses how important imagination is and the major effect it has on our lives, including the role it plays in hallucinations, moods, and creativity.

"Creativity is the unique and defining trait of our species, and its ultimate goal, self-understanding", begins Edward O. Wilson's sweeping examination of the humanities and its relationship to the sciences. By studying fields as diverse as paleontology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, Wilson demonstrates that human creativity began not 10,000 years ago, as we have long assumed, but over 100,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Age.

In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky shows that spatial cognition isn't just a peripheral aspect of thought, but its very foundation, enabling us to draw meaning from our bodies and their actions in the world. Our actions in real space get turned into mental actions on thought, often spouting spontaneously from our bodies as gestures. Spatial thinking underlies creating and using maps, assembling furniture, devising football strategies, designing airports, understanding the flow of people, traffic, water, and ideas.

We live in an epidemic of anxiety. Most of us assume that the key to overcoming it is to think our way out. And for a while it works. But there is always something that sends us back into the anxious spiral we’ve been trying to climb out of. In Beyond Anxiety, Dr. Martha Beck explains why anxiety is skyrocketing around you, and likely within you. She also tells you how to not only reduce your anxiety but use it to propel you into a life filled with peace, meaning, and joy.

A powerful and inspiring examination of the connection between the potential for great talent and conditions commonly thought to be "disabilities", revealing how the source of our struggles can be the origin of our greatest strengths. In The Power of Different, psychiatrist and best-selling author Gail Saltz examines the latest scientific discoveries and profiles famous geniuses who have been diagnosed with all manner of brain "problems".

From the former director of GCHQ, learn the methodology used by the British intelligence agencies to reach judgements, establish the right level of confidence and act decisively. Intelligence officers discern the truth. They gather information - often contradictory or incomplete - and, with it, they build the most accurate possible image of the world. With the stakes at their absolute highest, they must then decide what to do.

It isn't enough to just do your job anymore. In order to thrive in today's marketplace, all of us, regardless of our role, have to be ready to generate brilliant ideas on demand. Business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to establish effective practices that unleash your creative potential. Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, Henry has created a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm.

« L’essentiel, à partir du moment où vous entrez dans ce livre, c’est ce que vous déciderez de faire de votre désir d’écrire, qu’il vous conduise à réaliser une œuvre littéraire, à explorer votre existence, ou encore à mieux vous connaître et ainsi à mieux vivre. » Que faire de notre désir d’écrire quand des peurs et des freins nous nous musèlent ? Selon Eudes Séméria, psychothérapeute existentiel, il faut écrire pour se connaître et de se connaître pour écrire. Accéder à sa créativité passera alors par un travail d’analyse mais aussi par une mise à l’épreuve guidée permettant d'atteindre sa maturité.

Use the power of creative thinking to become more attractive with a makeover of your mind! It doesn't need a high IQ, or reams of knowledge, or a great personality. All it needs is creativity, imagination and empathy - all techniques that anyone can learn. Here Edward de Bono, world-famous for changing the way people think, shows you in a clear, practical language how to impress people with simple conversational tactics. Want to be irresistable? Then follow de Bono's advice.

As Jamie Holmes shows in Nonsense, being confused is unpleasant, so we tend to shutter our minds as we grasp for meaning and stability, especially in stressful circumstances. We’re hard-wired to resolve contradictions quickly and extinguish anomalies. This can be useful, of course. When a tiger is chasing you, you can’t be indecisive. But as Nonsense reveals, our need for closure has its own dangers. It makes us stick to our first answer, which is not always the best, and it makes us search for meaning in the wrong places.

In kindergartens these days, children spend more time with math worksheets and phonics flashcards than building blocks and finger paint. Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. In Lifelong Kindergarten, learning expert Mitchel Resnick argues for exactly the opposite: the rest of school (even the rest of life) should be more like kindergarten. To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively....

Reading comes easily to some students, but many struggle with some part of this complex process that requires many areas of the brain to operate together through an intricate network of neurons. As a classroom teacher who has also worked as a neurologist, Judy Willis offers a unique perspective on how to help students not only learn the mechanics of reading and comprehension, but also develop a love of reading.

Creativity was long thought to be a gift from the muses, a special quality of a select minority of people. Fortunately, more recent studies have debunked this belief and have shown promise for techniques to help us all boost our creative potential. Nature gives some people a genetic edge, but nurture has a large role in developing creative genius. In this audiobook, we look at this difficult-to-define quality from all angles: where creativity comes from, lessons we can learn from creative geniuses, and how to cultivate creativity.

In The Myths of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky isolates the major turning points of adult life, looking to both achievements (marriage, children, professional satisfaction, wealth) and failures (singlehood, divorce, financial ruin, illness) to reveal that our misconceptions about the impact of such events is perhaps the greatest threat to our long-term well-being.

In Flip Thinking, Berthold Gunster, the founder of the Dutch omdenken—or flip thinking—philosophy, presents fifteen strategies to transform your thinking away from limitations and negativities and towards possibilities and opportunities. From disrupting (turn all the rules upside down) to flaunting (play up what you want to hide) and from importing (get the enemy on board) to amplifying (do more of what works), Gunster's strategies and stories will have you approaching even the most challenging problems—from an annoying neighbor to an angry colleague to an unhappy partner—in a whole new way.

Making art—giving form to the images that arise in our mind's eye, our dreams, and our everyday lives—is a form of spiritual practice through which knowledge of ourselves can ripen into wisdom. This book offers encouragement for everyone to explore art making in this spirit of self-discovery—plus practical instructions on material, methods, and activities.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

The Desire Factor proves that desire is the force behind every act of creation. It is the mechanism through which everything in this boundless spiritual universe is made manifest into physical, tangible form. Every aspect of our human experience - from the emergence of our most heartfelt aspirations to the fulfillment of our most basic physical and biological needs - is driven by the engine of desire.