Your Brain on Creativity

1. Your Brain on Creativity Ellen J. Shabshai Fox, LISW Creativity Coach

2. 2014 NASW-NM ConferenceCreativity In Social Work:Fostering Creativity,Improving Outcomes; Tapping thePower of UnderutilizedNeural Networks

3. If you come to a fork in the road, take it.Yogi Berra Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein

4. Workshop Goals • Experience you embodied creative energy • Explore how Social Work training may inhibit Creativity • Learn elements of creative thinking • Explore how you can integrate creativity into your practice

5. Agenda 1) Exploration of Embodied Creative Energy 2) A story with neuroscience 3) The CREATES model of Shelley Carson, PHD.

6. Creativity is: • a basic human attribute • a generator of novelty that benefits personal and societal development • exists independent of age • an energy that can transform lives • Requires and is supported by “openess”

8. Creativity In Social Work • Is called for in the complex, interactive, people-focused and unpredictable role of the social worker and requires: • Acquisition of thinking and problem solving skills in complex systems • Development of imagination • Capacity to experiment and innovate • Self and environmental awareness • Negotiating cultural and ethical issues Reflections on Creativity in Social Work and Social Work education. (http.www.heacademy.ac.uk/creativity/htmz)

9. Creativity In Social Work “…creativity is a vital component of a good social worker. If creativity is looking outside the box, seeing things from a different perspective or experiencing oneself [and others[ differently, then these things are essential for good practice.”

10. Obstacles to Creativity in Social Work Agencies • Entrenched protocols and procedures • “Evidence” based practices - emphasis on solutions – narrow focus • Little or no time for reflection • Paperwork, heavy case loads, scarce resources • No culture of creativity and innovation • Fear of risk, failure • Emphasis on Convergent thinking

11. Convergent ThinkingDeliberative Pathway • Thinking is conscious, deliberate, sequential • Generates one solution at a time – solution focused • Uses trial and error • Revises, elaborates and implements • Left hemisphere, executive center is dominant “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when you only have one.” Emile Chartier

12. Divergent Thinking, Spontaneous Pathway • Generates multiple solutions and possibilities without judgment or evaluation • CONNECTS information from different parts of the brain – associational thinking • Requires “transient hypofrontality” or “cognitive disinhibition” – turns down the frontal lobes • Travels down the “back roads” of the brain

13. Cognitive Disinhibition(Shelley Carson) • “the failure to ignore information that is irrelevant to current goals” • Is likely at the heart of the “aha” experience • Promotes focus on the inner world (flow state) • Allows more material into conscious awareness that can be reprocessed and recombined in novel and original ways to produce creative ideas

14. Transient Hypofrontality(Rex Jung, PH. D) “traveling down the back roads of the brain”. “Why is it I always get my best ideas while shaving?” Albert Einstein

15. Transient Hypofrontality • Lessens cortical activity – “down regulation” of frontal lobes – planning, reasoning, decision making • Loosens connectivity – freer interplay of different networks in the brain allowing more linkages • NOT in the “knowledge acquisition mode” • Warm baths, nature, meditation, day dreaming, etc.

16. Building Blocks of the Brain 101.000 • Neurons – 100 billion • Neural Nets • Subsystems, OFC, Limbic area etc. • Hemispheres • Corpus Collusum — connects the two hemispheres

17. Neurons Firing and Connecting

18. Brain Cells Communicating

19. The Neural Forest

20. Myelination • Myelin, the fatty layer that accumulates around neurons • Allows electrical signals to transmit faster and more efficiently • “What wires together fires together.” • Demyelination occurs after forty – may support new connections – (elders exploring arts)

21. Neuroplasticity • • The brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life! You can teach an old dog new tricks. • • Allows the brain to form new neural networks (learning and memory) from novelty and stimulation • • Use it or lose it

22. Neuroplasticity • When exposed to challenging and enriched environments brain cells sprout additional dendrites that are involved in nerve cell communication • Cell bodies and nuclei enlarge • The cerebral cortex — the thinking part of the brain, thickens • All these activities continue with aging

23. The Two Hemispheres

24. Left and Right Hemisphere Functions • Right — integrated map of the body, wordless autobiography felt in the body, image laden language of poetry, avoidance/withdrawal emotions (fear) • Left — linear, logical, linguistic — captures experience in narrative, makes meaning, approach emotions (excitement)

25. Right Hemisphere is specialized for: • Simultaneous processing of information (multi sensory data as in music, art, nature experience) • Attending in a broad and diffuse way • intense emotions • Understanding the mental maps of others - (mindsight) • Prosody – the music of language/tone • Forming spacial maps

26. Haiku A petal shower, Of mountain roses, and the sound of the rapids. Wrapping the rice cakes, with one hand she fingers back her hair. (Basho)

27. Haiku Cold night: the wild duck, Sick, falls from the sky And sleeps awhile. Lightening - and in the dark the screech of a night heron Buson

28. Haiku Climb Mount Fuji o snail, but slowly, slowly The wren – Looking here, looking there, You lose something? Issa

29. Left Hemisphere • is specialized for: • Processing language/constructing narrative • Producing speech • Carrying out sequential processing of information • Focusing attention • Inhibiting (regulating) negative emotions • Constructing a Treatment Plan

30. The CREATES Brainset Model What kind of creative thinker are you?

31. The CREATES Model of Shelley Carson, PHD • A paradigm based in science - neuroimaging, research, interviews, biographies, etc. • Demystifies the creative process • Proposes 7 Brainsets—patterns of brain activation in stages of the creative process • Are “altered states of consciousness” • Change the way you access and process information

32. The Seven Brain Sets —The CREATES Model • Connect • Reason • Envision • Absorb • Transform • Evaluate • Stream (Flow)

34. Creative Hot Spots • Hot spots are highly interconnected. • Hot spots participate on several “teams” of interconnected networks for emotion, learning, visualizing, and coming up with creative ideas.

35. Scientific Support for The CREATES Model • Creatively productive individuals are able to access specific brain states that others may find more difficult or more uncomfortable to access. • Creatively productive individuals are able to switch among different brain states depending upon the task at hand • You can train yourself to access these brainsets and to flexibly switch among them, even if this does not come naturally to you at first.

36. The Take Home Message:Add dimension to your creative process • Learn about what is going on inside your brain. • Identify the brain sets that represent your “comfort zones” • Learn to cultivate under-utilized brain sets. • Learn to switch between sets depending on the stage of your creative process. • Bring these skills into collaboration with others.

37. The Connect Brain Set(Divergent Thinking) • Generates multiple solutions to a single problem • Thinks in terms of possibilities • Prefers complexity, multiple perspectives and solutions • Activates in association centers

38. The Association Centers • Allow information from distant parts of the brain to come together. • Act as “internal R&D department” to produce novel combinations of stored &/or perceived material. • Takes knowledge of one concept and applies it to another (metaphor) • Integrate sight, sound, smell and touch to form meaningful experience

39. Connect C = connect brainsetWhen you access the connect brainset, you enter a defocused state of attention that allows you to see the connections between objects or concepts that are quite disparate in nature. You are able to generate multiple solutions to a given problem rather than focusing on a single solution. The ability to generate multiple solutions is combined with an upswing in positive emotion that also provides incentive and motivation to keep you interested in your creative project.

40. Reason R = reason brainset When you access the reason brainset, you consciously manipulate information in your working memory to solve a problem. This is the state of purposeful planning that comprises much of our daily consciously-directed mental activity.  When you say that you’re “thinking” about something, you are generally referring to this brainset.

41. The Reason Brainset • Active when consciously thinking things out, sequential thinking • Cause and effect thinking • Hypotheses and conclusions based on observations and knowledge (evidence based practice) • Needed to manifest creative vision

42. Reason Brainset Exercise • Write down a specific creative goal • Write down the first there steps on the way • Write down the resources you will need • Give yourself an approximate time frame

43. Envision E = envision brainsetWhen you access the envision brainset, you think visually rather than verbally. You are able to see and manipulate objects in your mind’s eye. You see patterns emerge. In this brainset you tend to think metaphorically as you “see” the similarities between disparate concepts. This is the brainset of imagination.

44. Envision Brain Set • Picture a difficult client or work situation • Picture the outcome for you and them that you would like to create • Think of as many unorthodox pathways as possible that will lead towards this vision

45. Absorb A = absorb brainsetWhen you access the absorb brainset, you open your mind to new experiences and ideas. You uncritically view your world and take in knowledge. Everything fascinates you and attracts your attention.

46. Transform T = transform brainsetWhen you access the transform brainset, you find yourself in a self-conscious and dissatisfied – or even distressed – state of mind. You can use this state to transform negative energy into works of art and great performances. In this state you are painfully vulnerable; but you are also motivated to express (in creative form) the pain, the anxieties, and the hopes that we all share as part of the human experience.

47. Evaluate E = evaluate brainsetWhen you access the evaluate brainset, you consciously judge the value of ideas, concepts, products, behaviors, or individuals. This is the “critical eye” of mental activity. This brainset allows you to evaluate your creative ideas and products to ensure they meet your criteria for usefulness and appropriateness.

48. Stream S = stream brainsetWhen you access the stream brainset, your thoughts and actions begin to flow in a steady harmonious sequence, almost as if they were orchestrated by outside forces. The stream brainset is associated with the production of creative material, such as jazz improvisation, narrative writing (as in novels or short stories), sculpting or painting, and the step-by-step revelation of scientific discovery.

49. Resources for Creativity • OPENESS • Heart’s interest, even obsession, domain engagement • Curiosity • Capacity for intrinsic motivation • Living with Ambiguity, Uncertainty • Good evaluation skills – taking feedback