The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves

by Eric R. Kandel

Kris, a student of unconscious mental processes in creativity, observed that creative people experience moments in their work in which they undergo, in a controlled manner, a relatively free communication between the unconscious and conscious parts of their mind. He calls this controlled access to our unconscious ‘regression in the service of the ego’.4 It means that creative people go back to a more primitive form of psychological functioning, one that allows them access to their unconscious drives and desires – and to some of the creative potential associated with them. Because unconscious thinking is freer and more likely to be associative – it is characterised by images as opposed to abstract concepts – it facilitates the emergence of Aha! moments that promote new combinations and permutations of ideas.