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Blocks to Creativeness

The positive characteristics covered in the preceding chapter represent the potential any person has to be creative. But there are also negative forces at work within any personality which can inhibit new or novel ideas. These we can term mental blocks. They are, in a way, mental short circuits which literally block off parts of our memory or imagination to keep them from coming into play when we need them. As a corollary effect, they often cause our thinking to be sidetracked into completely unproductive directions so far as solving the problem at hand is concerned.

If not subdued, controlled, or otherwise compensated for, these blocks can win out over our positive characteristics and prevent us from fully utilizing our imaginative powers. Like the positive characteristics, these deterring factors will probably never occur to the same degree throughout the mental make-up of any one individual (he would certainly be a most unpleasant person if they did!). It is, therefore, possible for a person to have a strong mental block, or "set," in one category or direction, and be completely free of inhibitions in others. The average person, and also those who have demonstrated themselves to be highly creative, may suffer from all the different types of blocks in greater and lesser degrees. How well they can control or outwit them determines their final and total creative potential.

Although psychologists can give us many mental "set" de­scriptions, for all practical purposes they can be generalized and grouped into three major types: Perceptual blocks—the way we see things; Cultural blocks—the way we think we should think about things; and Emotional blocks—the way we feel about things. There is a fourth category that is probably just a combina­tion of the first three, but for purposes of examination we shall set it out as a separate type: Habits—the automatic thinking processes that govern so much of what we do.

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