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AN ATTEMPT will be made in this paper to show how some studies of the primary process may lead to a broader understanding of the creative process.
Many years ago, while studying schizophrenic thought, I became convinced that this type of thinking, which I called paleologic, followed an immature form of cognitive organization, which could be included in Freud's concept of the primary process. While Freud 8 and his followers 11 were mainly interested in studying the primary process as a carrier of unconscious motivation and as a consumer of psychic energy, I became particularly involved with the study of the organization of this type of thinking. 3
By the term "creative process, " I mean, to borrow an expression used in a different context by von Bertalanffy, 14 the process by which man tries to transcend the usual psychological formula Stimulus-Response. Although there is a fundamental difference between the infrahuman animal which has a limited number of responses and the symbol-making human being, 9 we must admit that man too tends to respond in fixed ways. Whether his response occurs immediately after the stimulus or whether it follows a complicated set of symbols and of choices, man tends to react in accordance with a