Using Mental Imagery to Enhance Creative and Work-related Processes

Description

In Using Mental Imagery to Enhance Creative and Work-Related Processes, Valerie Thomas explores the productive use of mental imagery skills to engage with the processes of creativity. Practical and original, the book offers detailed guidance for a highly effective method that can provide rich insights into the development of a range of creative enterprises, including artistic and work-related projects. In this accessible and innovative book, Thomas pays equal attention to the theory and application of mental imagery. First, she explains how imagination-based methods have been developed and theorised within the discipline of creative behaviour, especially with regard to dual-processing theories of creativity. The book then considers mental imagery as a dialogical method informed by contemporary post-Cartesian theories of embodied cognition that reprise an earlier premodern understanding of imagination as a mediator between body and mind. Thomas introduces a particular approach to mental imagery that, informed by a functional research-informed framework (the Interactive Communicative model of mental imagery), can be applied very effectively to creative processes. The second half of the book provides detailed guidance on how to apply this particular method and is copiously illustrated with case vignettes. It includes chapters on using imagery theorised as conceptual metaphors such as the plant image for representing creative capabilities and the building image for representing creative and work-related projects. It also explains how to use imagery to represent and work with the conceptual processes of undertaking qualitative research projects. This original and wide-ranging book advances the scope and use of creative image-work in diverse settings. It will be an essential resource for everyone who is interested in developing their own mental imagery skills for creative real-world applications and for all professionals such as coaches, therapists and research educators who want to facilitate creativity in others. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Preface 1 Introduction 2 How the method was developed 3 Creativity: the broader context 4 Understanding creativity as a dialogical process 5 Mental imagery and creativity 6 Viewing the mental imagery method from broader theoretical perspectives 7 Applying the mental imagery method to practice 8 Using mental imagery to represent and work with the creative capabilities of the self 9 Using the mental imagery method for the process of developing creative and work-related projects 10 Using the mental imagery method in a research practice context 11 Further thoughts on the mental imagery method as a stand-alone practice 12 Conclusion Appendix Index