Creativity and the Arts

Abstract

The chapter explores creativity from a psychological viewpoint, as spontaneous and reflective activities in several self-defining human efforts, such as telling stories and forming an identity. New discoveries from neuroscience and creative arts therapies combine to understand creativity as a range of normative human functioning, which blends with professional creative discovery in the arts at the higher extremes of this range. The chapter focuses on visual art and music, followed by a normative application of cre-ativity as utilized in creative arts therapies. Finally, the chapter concludes by introducing normative creative tools to incorporate into everyday life