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.
