GBUZ NO "Children's sanatorium "Gorodets"

Creativity training

The training is based on the use of Art Therapy and Fairy Tale Therapy methods.

Training objectives: activating one’s own creative potential, learning methods of overcoming psychological inertia in thinking and behavior. Teenagers train the ability to generate ideas and argue their positions. Give the concept of Creativity. Promote children's self-realization

In the course of the work, training participants get the opportunity to understand what creativity is, what its manifestations are, as well as the barriers that prevent the actualization of their own creative resources.

Progress of the training.

Game "Name - quality"

Instructions: “Let’s start our work with a game: everyone in turn will say their name and three qualities inherent in it, starting with the same letter as their name.”

This type of presentation requires participants to be inventive and flexible in their thinking, offering a somewhat unusual approach to considering their qualities and personality traits.

Association game

Instructions: “Let's imagine that this (the presenter shows the ball) is an orange. Now we will throw it to each other, saying at the same time which orange we are throwing. We will be careful: we will try not to repeat the already mentioned qualities, properties of the orange and make sure that we all took part in the work."

The presenter begins work by naming any characteristic of an imaginary orange, for example, “sweet.” "orange", "round"

The exercise is aimed at developing fluency of thinking, speed of retrieving information from memory, as well as the ability to consciously move into new content areas.

The modern world is changing rapidly... At school, at work, and in everyday life, people over and over again face new situations in which there is a high degree of uncertainty, and there are no previously known methods of action that are guaranteed to lead to success.

There are two main manifestations of creativity:

1. The ability to act productively in situations of novelty and uncertainty, with a lack of information, when there are no previously known methods of action that are guaranteed to lead to a positive result.

2. The ability to create any product that has novelty and originality.

What is Creativity:

– These are not only types of activities traditionally classified as creative (drawing, acting on stage, etc.), but any life situations in which there is novelty and uncertainty.

– This is a complex of intellect and personality traits, as well as a person’s general life position. It cannot be reduced to any single psychological quality, nor to special creative abilities (artistic, musical, etc.).

Creativity, to one degree or another, is characteristic of all people, and is not a unique psychological quality, the “stamp of genius.”

Creativity is manageable and developable - it can be activated and trained, including through specially simulated game situations.

Brainstorming game

Group members sit in a circle. The leader has the ball in his hands.

Instructions: “Now I’ll start the game, throw a ball to someone and name any object. The one who gets the ball will have to name three non-standard ways to use this object. For example, when throwing a ball, I’ll say “hammer.” In addition to its direct purpose, a hammer you can use it as a paperweight to prevent papers lying on the table from flying around; you can use a hammer as a handle for a heavy string bag; you can tie a string to it and use it as a plumb line during construction work. resort to universal ways of using most objects: almost any object can be drawn, touched, smelled, many objects can be given as a gift. So, the one to whom I throw the ball will name three non-standard, non-traditional ways to use the object he received and then throw the ball to the next one, naming another object. “We will be careful and make sure that everyone has the ball during this work.”

Discussion

“What were the main difficulties you encountered while completing the task?”

“What conditions arose and how did they change during the work?”,

“What helped you cope with the task?”

This exercise is primarily aimed at recognizing the barriers to creativity. To make their manifestation more clear, the presenter encourages the participants to react quickly, i.e. creates an external barrier: a time limit that makes itself felt in the presence of internal barriers, actualizing their impact on a person. During work, when someone for a long time cannot find another option for a non-standard use of an item, you can invite others to show whether they have their own options by raising their hand or nodding their head. There are always several people in a group who have one or even several options.

Indeed, many of us have a stereotype formed in childhood: “You can’t keep yourself waiting.” In this situation, it begins to act, and a person experiences tension that blocks the free search for answer options.

Among the states that arise during the task, participants name excitement, anxiety, and embarrassment. The idea of ​​evaluation arises: “...everyone is looking at me and waiting for me to answer, and it seems to me that others answered faster and better.” Quite often during a discussion, it is possible to discover such internal barriers to creativity as stereotypes, the desire to do the right thing at all costs (“I was silent because I was looking for a better option”), a focus on approval, and low self-esteem.

External barriers to the manifestation of creativity (creativity), which clearly reveal their influence during this exercise, include: time limitation (situational stress factor), evaluation (participants themselves attribute this reaction to the people around them).

The exercise provides an opportunity to better understand what conditions contribute to creativity.

Game plot

“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived one King. I wanted changes in my kingdom, I wanted something new that no one else in the area had. And he decided to find the most skillful, strong, dexterous, and savvy and take them into his service, to help. He sent the news to all cities and villages.

Time passed, and craftsmen from different cities came to the Tsar Father. The King came out to them and said:

- I’ll give you tasks - not difficult ones, just don’t consult with each other. Each task must be completed in its own way. So I’ll see - you think the same way or differently. If it’s the same, then I’ll hire one craftsman to help me, if there’s no difference between you. If it’s different, I’ll accept everyone into the royal service. Do you agree with my terms?

- We agree, Father Tsar.

- Then listen to my first task...

1 task.

Instructions: I will tell you one of three words:“air”, “earth” or “water”, and on a piece of paper you write and sketch a bird - if it is air, an animal - if it is earth, and a fish - if it is water.

2 task

exercise "Blob"

Description of the exercise. Participants show a sheet with a drawn blot. It is suggested that you try to redraw it on your own piece of paper and complete the drawing: animal... natural phenomenon.... item…

3 task

Instructions: “Now I invite each of us to take a sheet of paper and draw creativity (creativity) as you understand it.

Game "LAME MONKEY"

Goal: Reducing emotional stress.

Content: Participants are asked to imagine a lame monkey, its antics and gait. Then the presenter says that he forbids thinking about this monkey for two minutes, and times the time. Those who laugh go into the middle of the circle. At the end, all the participants end up there and laugh happily together.

There may be “provocateurs” in the group. Therefore, you should warn the guys that there is no need to portray a lame monkey, it is important just not to think about it.

Reflexion
Exercise "Rhymes"

Description of the exercise. Participants are asked to complete several phrases related to the past training in rhyme. In particular, you can suggest the following phrases:

♦ We met, we played, we developed creativity...

♦ We came to the training, where you and I were taught...

♦ Creativity - what kind of bird?..

♦ We remember it so vividly...

♦ Our training ends...

Relaxation "Rainbow"

Teacher - psychologist

GBUZ NO "Children's Sanatorium "Gorodets" Tropina N.I.

psychological exercises for training

Training for the development of creativity and creative abilities

Conceptual introduction:

Creativity (from the English create - to create, English creative - constructive, creative) - the creative abilities of an individual, characterized by a readiness to create fundamentally new ideas that deviate from traditional or accepted patterns of thinking and are included in the structure of talent as an independent factor, as well as the ability solve problems that arise within static systems. According to the authoritative American psychologist Abraham Maslow, this is a creative orientation that is innately characteristic of everyone, but is lost by the majority under the influence of the environment.

Creativity is an activity that results in the creation of new material and spiritual values. Being in its essence a cultural and historical phenomenon, creativity has a psychological aspect: personal and procedural. It presupposes that an individual has abilities, motives, knowledge and skills, thanks to which a product is created that is distinguished by novelty, originality, and uniqueness. The study of these personality traits has revealed the important role of imagination, intuition, unconscious components of mental activity, as well as the individual’s need for self-actualization, in revealing and expanding one’s creative capabilities. [Brief psychological dictionary / Under general. ed. A.V. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky. – Rostov n/D.: Phoenix, 1999. – P.380].

Creativity (from the Latin creatio - “creation”) is a person’s ability to generate unusual ideas, original solutions, and deviate from traditional patterns of thinking. Creativity is one of the components of a creative personality and does not depend on erudition. People with a high level of creativity are called creatives.

According to a number of scientists, in the manifestation of creativity, or more precisely, divergent thinking, which is the basis of creativity, the role of the genetic factor, in contrast to the environmental factor, is small (R. Nicolet; E.L. Grigorenko, B.I. Kochubey, 1989).

Among the numerous facts that confirm the crucial role of family-parental relationships, there are the following:

1. As a rule, the eldest or only child in the family has a greater chance of showing creative abilities.
2. Children who identify themselves with their parents (father) are less likely to show creativity. On the contrary, if a child identifies himself with the “ideal hero,” then he has a greater chance of becoming creative. This fact is explained by the fact that most children have parents who are “average”, uncreative people, and identification with them leads to the formation of uncreative behavior in children.
3. More often, creative children appear in families where the father is much older than the mother.
4. The early death of parents leads to a lack of behavior patterns with restricted behavior in childhood, which contributes to the development of creativity.
5. Increased attention to the child’s abilities is beneficial for the development of creativity, a situation where talent becomes an organizing principle in the family. So, a family environment, where, on the one hand, there is attention to the child, and on the other hand, various inconsistent demands are placed on him, where there is little external control over behavior, where there are creative family members and non-stereotypical behavior is encouraged, leads to the development of creativity in children. child (V.N. Druzhinin, 1999, pp. 214-215).

T.S. Suslova identified the main features characteristic of creative individuals. These are consciousness, responsibility, perseverance, sense of duty, high control over behavior and emotions, determination, enterprise, risk-taking, social courage, internal locus of control, intellectual lability. V.N. Druzhinin (1999) believes that the development of creativity proceeds according to the following mechanism: on the basis of general talent, under the influence of the microenvironment and imitation, a system of motives and personal properties (nonconformism, independence, self-actualization motivation) is formed, and general talent is transformed into actual creativity, i.e. creativity is a synthesis of talent and a certain personality structure.

Low intelligence, neuroticism and anxiety hinder the manifestation of creativity.

Target: awareness of creativity in oneself and its development. (Developing the ability of participants to find new non-standard (creative) solutions to problems; establishing communication links within the group.)

Tasks:

1. Awareness and overcoming barriers to the manifestation and development of creative thinking.
2. Awareness of the characteristics of a creative environment.
3. Formation of skills and abilities to manage the creative process.

Materials: paper, scissors, pencils, models of objects, ball, newspapers.

Stages of work:

I. Stage – warming up

Exercise “Throw the ball over”

Goals: verbal and non-verbal communication, brings group members closer together. It is aimed at liberating group members, establishing contacts with each other and finding a quick solution to the task.

Materials: ball.

Time: 2-5 minutes

Procedure: Participants stand in a close circle, they are given a small ball (about the size of a tennis ball) and the task is formulated: to throw this ball to each other as quickly as possible so that it is in everyone’s hands. The presenter records the time required for this. The optimal number of participants in a circle is from 6 to 8; with a larger number, it is advisable to perform the exercise in several subgroups. The exercise is repeated 3-4 times, the leader asks to do it as quickly as possible. When the time spent has been brought to approximately 1 s for each participant, the facilitator asks to invent and demonstrate a way in which the ball can be thrown so that it is in everyone’s hands, spending only 1 s for the whole group. Usually after some time the participants come up with and demonstrate an appropriate solution. (It consists in the fact that they all place their hands folded in a “boat” on top of each other and alternately spread their palms to the sides. The ball, falling down, is passed from hand to hand and thus manages to visit each participant). Problem solved!

Psychological meaning of the exercise. Demonstration of how a problem can be solved more effectively with the help of a non-trivial approach to it and how stereotypes prevent this (“to throw means to throw up and then catch”). Group cohesion, learning to coordinate joint actions.

Issues for discussion:

1. What prevented you from immediately seeing a quick way to complete a task, what stereotype was activated?
2. Who first came up with the idea of ​​throwing the ball, not throwing it, but dropping it, and what prompted this idea?
3. What situations, when a stereotypical vision prevented one from seeing a simple and non-trivial way to solve a problem, were encountered in the life experience of the participants, and how were these limitations managed to be overcome?

Exercise “Islands” (5-10 minutes)

Target: All participants will be posted on the newspaper. (on the whole, half of the newspaper, on a third).

Materials: newspapers.

Time: 5-10 minutes

Procedure: Participants are divided into groups of 4-6 people and complete tasks at speed.

The meaning of the exercise: Creating conditions for implementing and putting forward ideas about how to act in a non-standard situation, group unity, physical warm-up. Participants exchange emotions and feelings and voice all their ideas.

II. Stage – Main activity

Exercise "Freeze Frame"

Target: development of expression skills, on the other hand, gives participants the opportunity to look at their attitude to those areas of life that words touch from a new perspective.

Materials: list of words.

Time: 10 minutes

Procedure: Participants move freely around the audience. At the leader’s command, given by clapping their hands, they stop and demonstrate, using facial expressions and pantomime (posture, gestures, body movements), the word that the leader calls. The “freeze frame” lasts 8-10 seconds, after which, when the leader claps again, the participants again begin to move freely around the room until the next clap sounds and the next word is called. It is advisable to take “still images” using a digital photo or video camera and demonstrate the footage to the participants immediately after the exercise.

You can use, for example, the following sets of words: time, past, childhood, present, study, future, profession, success; meeting, communication, understanding, friendship, love, family, happiness.

Exercise “Using objects”

Target: development of creative intelligence.

Materials: paper clip, toothbrush, pencil, match... etc.

Time: 10–15 minutes

Procedure: In two minutes, find as many uses for a shoe lace as you can and write them down. This exercise develops creative intelligence; you can take any other subject for consideration.

Issues for discussion:

1. Was it difficult to come up with new uses for simple and familiar things?
2. How can your item be used?
3. What did this exercise make you think about?

Exercise "Arch"

Target: development of creative abilities, search for a non-standard solution to a given problem.

Materials: scissors, paper.

Time: 10 minutes

Procedure: Participants unite into teams, receive A4 paper, and are given a task: to make an arch so that any of the participants or all of them in turn can pass through it. Demonstrate as many ways as possible.

Issues for discussion:

1. Who at first thought it was impossible to do the exercise?
2. How often do such situations arise?
3. Who suggested the solution or is it a collective one?

III. Stage - Completion

Exercise “Creative Life”

Target: summarize private individuals’ ideas about their creative abilities and find their creative beginning.

Time: 7–15 minutes

Materials: paper, pens.

Procedure: Participants are united in groups of 5-6 people and given the task: Create a list of recommendations that will allow you to “make your own life more creative” and write them down. The recommendations formed must be realistically implemented by all participants or at least the majority of them (i.e., do not imply the presence of any rare abilities, too large material costs, etc.).

Creativity training

Target:

- development of intellectual qualities that make up creativity: fluency, flexibility and originality of thinking, imagination, the ability to find unexpected associations;

Demonstration of the possibilities of using creativity in solving life problems, as well as achieving personal and professional goals;

Formation of team creative work skills

Form: training

Creativity means digging deeper, looking better, correcting mistakes, talking to a cat, diving into the deep, walking through walls, lighting up the sun, building a sand castle, welcoming the future

E. Torrance

Progress:

I Introduction .

Announcement.

Modernthe world is changing rapidly. Whether at school, at work, or in everyday life, people are repeatedly faced with new situations in which there is a high degree of uncertainty, and there are no previously known methods of action that are guaranteed to lead to success. The creativity training offered to you is designed to help you learn to cope with such situations, relying on your creative abilities.

Creativity includes:

intellectual prerequisites for creative activity,
allowing you to create something new, previously unknown, as well as
a preliminary set of knowledge and skills necessary to
to create this new thing;

personal qualities that allow you to act productively in
situations of uncertainty, go beyond the predictable, show spontaneity:

a person's life position, which implies refusal
stereotypes, stereotypes in judgments and actions, desire
perceive and create something new, change oneself and
change the world around you.

One way or another, creativity is seen as a kind of opposite of routine, standard, comfort (susceptibility to external influence)

Creativity, to one degree or another, is characteristic of all people, and is not a unique psychological quality, the “stamp of genius.” Of course, the degree of severity can vary significantly. However, for most people it is quite sufficient to

take a creative approach to solving life problems. If this does not happen, then the problem is usually not the lack of creative abilities, but their insufficient “tuning”, the inability to use them.

Creativity is manageable and developable - it can be activated and trained, including by me, through specially simulated game situations. The proposed program is precisely the method of such training.

P. Acquaintance and unity of training participants.

Target: creating a favorable, friendly atmosphere for further effective interaction.

2.1Dating game “Snowball”

2.2 Exercise “Envelope of Revelations”

Description of the exercise.

All participants sit in a circle. The presenter invites everyone to open the envelope and take out a piece of paper with a question to answer. At the same time, the participants say their name.

Gives participants the opportunity to get to know each other better and tell about your feelings, hobbies, preferences, interests.

Discussion.

What new and unexpected things did you learn from those with whom

did you communicate? What about ourselves? Who surprised you the most?

Sh. Waiting for the participants.

There is a river on the poster. One shore is called the “Coast of Expectations”, and the other is called the “Coast of Fulfilled Hopes”. Each of the participants is offered a paper boat, on which they write their expectations and place it near the “Shore of Expectations”. Our journey begins there.

IV . Acceptance of rules for working in groups

The trainer briefly announces the rules for working in groups and explains their meaning. If participants do not like any of the rules, they can refuse it, but be sure to replace it with another one not proposed by the trainer.

V . Main part

Each of the exercises at this stage reflects one of the main qualities that characterize a creative personality.

5.1. Creative thinking

Goal: to demonstrate the basic qualities that characterize creative thinking (fluency, flexibility, originality) and provide a variety of opportunities to practice them.

5.1.1 Exercise “Improving a toy”

Description of the exercise.

Participants are shown a soft toy and given the task to propose as many fundamentally feasible ways to improve it as possible - what can be done to make children more interested in playing with it? The exercise is performed in subgroups of 4-5 people, work time is 8-10 minutes. Then representatives of each of the subgroups present their ideas in turn.

Psychological meaning of the exercise. Training the ability to generate ideas in a team environment

Discussion. What, from the participants' point of view, contributed to the emergence of new ideas when performing this exercise. And what hindered? Which ideas seem the most creative? How can you classify the ideas expressed, what semantic categories do they belong to? What life situations can this exercise be compared to?

5.1.2 Exercise “Drawings from figures”

Description of the exercise.

Participants are shown several rows consisting of geometric figures and are given the task of completing each figure in such a way that a holistic, meaningful image is obtained from it. Of which she would become an integral part. It is impossible to repeat the plots; each figure must turn into some new image, but several figures can be united by a single plot of the image. Then the completed drawings are evaluated from the standpoint of originality and elaboration.

Psychological meaning of the exercise.

Training in the ability to find unexpected associations when looking at material whose similarity to real objects is minimized.

Discussion

Which psychological qualities, from the participants’ point of view, contributed to the successful completion of this exercise, and which hindered them? In what real life situations will the skills trained in the scrap exercise be useful?

5.2 Non-standard

Target: to teach participants to look at familiar things from new, unusual angles, to notice the original in the ordinary.

5.2.1 Exercise “Foreigner”

Description of the exercise.

“Imagine yourself as a foreigner who does not know the Russian language very well and therefore is not able to understand the allegorical meaning of statements. He understands all words literally: for example, having heard “Don’t hang your nose,” he imagines a man hanged by the nose and thinks that this is a medieval method of execution. Offer as many options as possible for what he might think when he hears the following phrases:

canny;

A mosquito won't hurt your nose:

the devil himself is not a brother,

went through fire, water and copper pipes;

If you don’t apply oil, you won’t go;

seven nannies have a child without an eye;

teach your grandmother to suck eggs;

You can’t beg for snow in winter;

the house was a full cup;

the thief's hat is on fire;

cast pearls before swine

The exercise is performed in subgroups of 3-4 people, each subgroup chooses three phrases and comes up with as many possible options for their literal interpretation as possible,

Psychological meaning of the exercise.

The exercise teaches you to reconsider from new, unusual angles what seems understandable, familiar and banal, taking the position of a “naive listener” who does not have a formed idea of ​​​​what he perceives.

Discussion.

“You see. How uniquely you can perceive understandable and familiar phrases. Just mentally taking the position of a person who does not know their meaning in advance! Please share examples of situations in your life when rejecting a “previously known” understanding of a situation helped you see things from a new perspective. Solve related problems.

5.2.2 Exercise “Unusual situations”

Description of the exercise.

Participants are offered several descriptions of strange, but nevertheless completely real situations taken from life experience. Both the presenter and the participants themselves can give examples of such situations. Participants come up with ideas to explain how such a situation could arise.

Ideas must be plausible, capable of happening in reality; Frankly fantastic options are not accepted. The exercise is performed in teams of 4-5 people. Then representatives from each team talk about the ideas they put forward.

Examples of the situation.

- “We walked through the forest. And at the edge of the forest our attention was attracted
one young tree. Directly on its top was attached
aluminum beer can. How did they put it there? Tree height
about five meters, but it is clearly too thin, especially at the top.
To withstand the weight of a person climbing on it...”

- “Returning from the dacha to Slavyansk along the Kharkov-Rostov highway, we saw
a very strange road accident, standing by the side of the road, a crumpled
passenger car. And on the roof there is another car, the wheels are in
the air hangs down. Traffic cops are scurrying around. Nearby only
The highway is smooth, there are no intersections or sharp turns. None
or obstacles on the road. How could such an accident happen?..."

Psychological meaning of the exercise.

In addition to the ability to generate ideas that simply and clearly explain situations that are unusual at first glance, the exercise teaches you to notice such situations: to look at the surrounding reality with “open eyes” and pay attention to the unusual.

Discussion.

Which explanations seem to be the most creative and why? Which options are the most plausible? Does one match the other? Hardly. in what life situations is it more important to pay attention to the original, unusual. And which ones are the simplest and most obvious?

5.3. Imagination and expressiveness

Target: Development of creative imagination. Along with the participants learn to express their ideas in unusual, original forms.

5.3.1 Exercise “What a letter does”

Description of the exercise. Participants are asked to choose a letter that is often found in the Russian language “from approximately the following set: B, I, K, M, P, R, S, T) and depict it in the form of a man.

After that, they come up with as many verbs as possible starting with the selected letter, denoting actions that this little man can perform) and draw it (in the form of a letter) for each of these activities) The exercise is performed individually. Then an exhibition of the resulting drawings is held.

Psychological meaning of the exercise.

Development of both verbal creativity (searching for verbs starting with a given letter) and the ability to express one’s ideas in an unusual, distinctly strange context (in this case, through drawings of a letter “turned into a person” and doing carvings)

Discussion.

What exactly is the most interesting thing about the created drawings?

5.3.2 Exercise “Gulliver”

Description of the exercise.

“Imagine yourself in the place of Gulliver, who finds himself in the land of Lilliputians (where he is about the height of a three-story house) and in the land of giants (where he is about the height of a pencil). Come up with as many ideas as you can about what items you could use in each of these countries as:

hats;

Houses;

beds;

bed linen;

cars:

pet;

Notebook.

The exercise is performed individually. Then the participant voices their options, and the presenter writes them down.

The exercise is based on the technique of hyperbolization (presentation of familiar objects in an exaggeratedly reduced or enlarged form), which contributes to the emergence of new associations. Developing the ability to perceive familiar things from new, unexpected angles, to pay attention to their properties that are not noticed in everyday life.

Discussion.

Where was it easier to imagine yourself in the role of Gulliver - in the land of Lilliputians or giants? What is this connected with? Which of the put forward

Where was it easier to imagine yourself in the role of Gulliver - in the land of Lilliputians or giants? What is this connected with? Which of the ideas put forward about the use of the object do you find most interesting? What unexpected properties of familiar objects are used in them?

VI . Summarizing.

Target: comprehend the experience gained during the training, sum up the results, give feedback on past exercises.

6.1.1 Exercise “Paper Gift”

Description of the exercise.

It is proposed to make a gift that you would like to present to the group before the end of the training. For this you have paper, scissors, tape, and drawing supplies. In addition to making a gift, it is proposed to formulate and write down a wish for other participants; it can be written down both on the gift itself and on a separate sheet or a specially made postcard. Time to prepare gifts and write down wishes is 10-15 minutes. After this, the gifts are distributed among the participants.

It is better to do this using a random selection game procedure. For example as follows.

Everyone stands in a circle facing outward and places the gifts they have made on the sweat in front of them, at a distance of about 1 m from themselves

At the leader’s command, they hold hands, close their eyes and begin to move clockwise.

When the circle moves about half a turn, the leader will give the command to stop and open your eyes. You take out to each person the gift that will be in front of him at that moment.

Psychological meaning of the exercise

One of the forms of summarizing the results of the training. When given the opportunity to present and give to other participants its result in a materialized “objectified” form.

Discussion.

Everyone is invited to come up with and say words of gratitude for the gift they received.

6.1.2 Shutdown

Move the boat, which at the beginning of the training was at the “Coast of Expectations” at such a distance from the “Coast of Fulfilled Hopes” that would reflect the degree to which your expectations are fulfilled.

If you believe the dictionaries - and if not them,then who is left to believe in thiscountry? – the word “creativity” means the ability of consciousness to create a) something new and b) valuable ness. The second part of the definition is very important. Because it's clear that almost anyone can come up with a vinyl tear bleeder or the word “kaliplyuk” - but no one will need these new items. In Latin there is a verb creare (“to create, to produce”), but it was applied only to the gods. It was believed that a person does not invent anything himself: poems, the design of a tunic and a drawing of a catapult are whispered to him by spirits, whom the Greeks called demons, and the Romans called geniuses. For the first time, a Polish poet dared to call a booger “creative” by its name in the 17th century. Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski. It was a story - give it up and forget it. Further information will go without which It will not be possible to use your textbook.

Today there are many theories explaining why some smart people can write jokes, songs and nanorobots, while others cannot. Three of the most famous theorists of creativity - Alex Osborne (creator of the brain assault), Edward de Bono (who invented lateral thinking) and our compatriot, despite his surname, Heinrich Altshuller (author of TRIZ, theory of solving inventive problems). They all wrote about different things and gave rise to a lot of schools in practical psychology, but in general their thoughts amounted to approximately the same thing. We will use de Bono's metaphors.

1. Human thinking can be compared to a sandbox. If you pour water on sand, it will first spread over a small area, and then there is no need to deepen the hole and gather there. It's the same with the head. About problems (and data in general) are water, which leaves traces. The hole is thought pattern.

2. Patterns help to recognizesituation and respond quickly to it. It's enough to inject yourself onceoh cactus to stop buying them.

3. When the patterns come together, they form vertical thinking (“trial and error field”). It helps in solving everyday routine tasks. Once in the template hole, information flows down, deepening it.

4. Vertical thinking kills creativity. A person who thinks in patterns cannot come up with anything new. Because to do this you need to go beyond the usual interpretation, break the mold, and master new data horizons.

All of the above researchers have developed their own methods development of non-standard, creative thoughts. De Bono taught to let “water” flow sideways, hence the name of his method – lateral thinking (from the Latin word “lateral”). Altshuller created 76 protocols to ensure that would take the thought beyond its limits vychnogo. Osborne relied on collective intelligence, believing that a group of people shouting all sorts of bullshit would end up being smarter than everyone else. many of its members, seriously thinking working on the problem.

But enough about this. Prepare your brain, we'll shake it up.

Part 2: lots of practice

And here are the promised exercises. Each of them is aimed at one timethe twist of a certain aspect of miceleniya. If you read and cross out with a pencil not only the article, butand the books indicated in it, you canbecome smarter and even, in particular, onlearn to draw. Jokes aside.

Aspect 1: lack of self-criticism

De Bono believed that people become dumber with age. This happens because adults begin to impose restrictions on thought. Many solutions to the problem are dismissed as “stupid” or “childish.” Here, for example, is the famous figure test (Fig. 1). When Edward shows threw it at the children and asked them to say that this, any schoolchild called about 40 options: a house without a chimney, a blank for a paper airplane, a bitten chocolate bar. Grown up lye called a maximum of 10 varieties ants. They tended to fit themselves into a geometry pattern and describe the figure as a square with a triangle on top or a truncated straight line. golnik.

Can you imagine? A person is able to cut off three-quarters of the options for solving a problem (and any image is already a task, material for interpretation) simply because they are frivolous and supposedly unworthy of a thinking person! Adults don’t even pronounce these options, looking around warily and waiting for a blow from a stapler. People criticize themselves in advance! De Bono said that this complex needs to be gotten rid of first.

Exercise 1

Try connecting nine points with four segments (Fig. 2). You cannot take the pencil off the paper. In this case, the line can pass through each of the points only once.

Exercise 2

But you can do this for the rest of your life. Take it for The rule is to look at pictures (for example, an advertisement in a magazine) and come up with one or two options for what is happening in the frame. Here, for example, is a woman who had howling on her face wife letter "T" made from tablets. Why? Was she trying to hide the bruise from colliding with the cast iron Home Goods sign? She is one of the participants (third from left) of the march “We demand an extension of the pregnancy period!”? Or maybe... Write down your three options. Let it turn out stupid. But your job is to learn thinking exactly “stupid”, unusually, like a child. And don't feel guilty for This. This is the beginning of creativity.

Aspect 2: Shifting the Entry Point

Another de Bono test (Fig. 3) looks like this: participants are asked to draw a figure that can be cut into four equal parts with one movement. 35% of participants immediately give up and put forward the idea of ​​a cross, very narrow in the central part, about 3% produce a unique result (Edward collects them). On average, 12% of the remaining solve the problem without being creative technical, but that's all in an interesting way - because that fit the re sheniyu from the end. That is, they first cut out four identical pieces of paper, and then try to combine them into a figure. This is a shift in the entry point. Who said that the problem needs to be solved sequentially? What if you immediately imagineresult? Or try to associate it with a random word? Or with a picture?

Exercise 3

Open www.dzen.yandex.ru. Find the Find button. Think of a problem: your husband is playing poker, the leather on his stiletto heels is torn, you can’t come up with stories for the corporate calendar. Click on the button. The search engine will give you a random result: a word and a picture. Try to relate it to your problem. How do problems relate to search results? For example, you got a “steering wheel braid”. Maybe your husband’s dangerous hobby can be replaced with a safe one by giving (or breaking) him a car? How about braiding the heels? And so on. Ask Zen-Yandex for advice (just not out loud, so as not to feel like a complete child). The more delusional the answer, the more it will destroy the thinking pattern. And remember, no self-criticism!

Aspect 3: endless questions

Another creative thinking skill that children do better than adults is subverting. Why does thunder thunder? Because the clouds are colliding with each other. Why do they collide? Because the wind is blowing above. Why can't they leave? The child’s task is not so much to tire you (he may not understand the pleasure that bullying an adult brings) but to get to the bottom of the pattern. Children cannot stand answers like “it has always been this way” or “it should be so.” "Who needs?" - they continue their interrogation. This allows them to make a hundred abstract and paradoxical judgments a day, such as “mom came drunk because she’s afraid to ride in the elevator.” You can do this too.

Exercise 4

A problem for those who know how to play chess, or at least know how the pieces move and that a pawn turns into any piece after reaching the last line. Condition: Black starts and checkmates the white king in one move. Vertical enumeration of moves will not help (Fig. 4).

Exercise 5

You are probably familiar with this game: the presenter tells the situation. For example, a person comes to a bar and asks for a glass of water. The bartender points a gun at him. The man says “thank you” and leaves. Or: a husband and wife stop on a deserted road, the husband goes to get gas, the wife locks up. When her husband returns, she is dead, there is a stranger next to her in the car, the doors are locked from the inside. By asking unambiguous questions ("yes" and "no"), the participants in the game must reconstruct the picture of events. The Internet is full of these tasks – they are called “Danetkas”. They teach you to ask questions until the last minute, without giving up. If a computer game doesn’t captivate you, practice on real people, discussing the problem with colleagues or family until the last minute. Refuse to accept “you can’t” and “that’s how it is” as answers.

And enough about that

While TRIZ, which was mainly suitable for solving engineering problems, began to be forgotten after the death of its creator, the brainstorming method was developed. Today there are many techniques (for example, the Young procedure or the 3-6-5 method - they are on Google) for creative problem solving in a team. De Bono is still alive and continues to write a book a year. His textbooks can be purchased on the website www.debono.ru. Especially good are “Serious Creative Thinking” and “Thinking Outside the Box. Self-teacher."

Aspect 4: Right Hemisphere Musing

This article would be even more incomplete if we did not mention that some experts associate creativity with the right hemisphere of the brain. Until the 50s of the 20th century, it remained unclear why a person would carry a walnut in his head - and why the brain should not be an ideal sphere or cube. The first answers were received by R. Sperry from the California Institute of Technology. As a result of experiments on animals, he found out that the hemispheres work independently of each other. Then other scientists joined in, in particular J. Levy, who worked with epileptics who had undergone commissurotomy - an operation to separate the hemispheres. Levy found out that the left hemisphere is verbal, temporal, and analytical. The right one is figurative, timeless, synthetic. In hindsight, his work explained the case of Lovis Corinth, a professional artist who forgot how to draw when a tumor grew in his right hemisphere.

But enough of the accompanying theory. Professor B. Edwards back in the 60s developed a method of teaching drawing based on right-hemisphere thinking. Her course allows a person to learn to draw in a couple of months. And also improve your handwriting, learn to enjoy beauty and look at your man with a fresh, unclouded look. And also improve memory and see connections between phenomena.

If you want to learn how to draw at least like the author of this article, buy Edwards' book “Discover the Artist in You.” Fortunately, it has recently been re-released, so there is no need to download the old edition from www.booksgid.com.

Exercise 6

You've probably come across illusion pictures: two faces form a vase (Fig. 5, but there are many more of them on the Internet). Drawing paradoxes like this helps you connect with your right brain and understand the difference between the two types of thinking. On the left side of the sheet, draw a face, saying its parts to yourself: forehead, eyes, nose, lips. Connect the extreme points with horizontal lines to the right side of the sheet. And now - attention! You need to draw a mirror image of the face. Now try not to conduct a mental dialogue with yourself, but simply slowly draw a line, repeating all the curves in a mirror image. This technique will engage your right brain.

Exercise 7

The easiest way to master right-hemisphere drawing is to copy upside-down contour drawings (play with Fig. 6). The problem with people who think they can't draw is that they draw symbols, not images. That is, they use the left hemisphere for drawing (and this is a gross mistake). When they sit down to draw a face, they actually draw a diagram: a circle, two eyes, a stick-nose, a stick-mouth. Therefore, it is impossible to copy drawings in the left hemisphere operating mode: the brain adjusts each line to the finished symbol. But as soon as you turn the drawing over, the brain loses associations. The right half turns on - and everything starts to work out. Try it yourself!

Exercise 8

Well, if you want to seriously shake up your thinking and improve the exchange of electrical impulses between the hemispheres, try the following trick. Take two pens (it’s better if one of them is a pencil) in different hands. Try to slowly draw a triangle with one hand and a circle with the other. For the first three minutes you will end up with circular or triangular circles, but then your hands will find the right rhythm and will be able to separate themselves. If at this moment you get a headache, quit this task and return to it after an hour or two or a day. Once you have mastered drawing with both hands, try writing words. They must be different, but consist of the same number of letters.

OK it's all over Now. More precisely, everything is just beginning. Disinhibit your thinking, don’t criticize yourself, move your entry point, draw! We don’t know how this will help you be a good accountant or wife, but for some reason you started reading this article after learning that it increases libido and creativity.

Photo source: Getty Images, press service archives