Summary Notes

Topics

  1. Mental Blocks
  2. Improving Your Creative Abilities
  3. Risk Taking

Mental Blocks top

Recognizing Mental Blocks: Conceptual Blockbusting

  1. Perceptual Blocks are obstacles that prevent the problem solver from clearly perceiving either the problem itself or the information needed to solve it. A few types of perceptual blocks are
  2. Emotional Blocks interfere with your ability to solve problems in many ways. They decrease the amount of freedom with which you explore and manipulate ideas, and they interfere with your ability to conceptualize fluently and flexibly.
  3. Cultural Blocks are acquired by exposure to a given set of cultural patterns, while environmental blocks are imposed by our immediate social and physical environment.
  4. Environmental Blocks: Distractions (phones, interruptions) are blocks that inhibit deep prolonged concentration. Working in an atmosphere that is pleasant and supportive most often increases the productivity of the problem solver.
  5. Intellectual Blocks: This block can occur as a result of inflexible or inadequate uses of problem-solving strategies. Lacking the necessary intellectual skills to solve a problem can certainly be a block as can lack of the information necessary to solve the problem.
  6. Expressive Blocks: The inability to communicate your ideas to others, in either verbal or written form, can also block your progress.

Improving Your Creative Abilities top

Risk Taking top