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Today, more therapists are writing about psychotherapy. We have always had books written by patients describing the benefits or woes of their therapy; recently we have been able to read more about how the therapist reacts to the patient. Psychotherapy is, after all, a two-way street and each participant is a human being with a fair share of human strengths and weaknesses.
Albert Rothenberg focuses on the creative process that should be a part of effective psychotherapy. It is flattering for a psychotherapist to realize that he or she is much more than just a mechanic or technician trying to fix somebody's mind. Rothenberg is now comparing therapists with successful writers, artists, and scientists. The psychotherapist has been found to use creative processes similar to those used by such people.
Rothenberg has studied the various creative processes applied by both groups. There are two basic creative processes, and he has coined labels for them. The first term is known as the “homospatial process,” and the second is the “Janusian process.” The homospatial process is a special mode of creative cognition in which there are two or more discrete entities occupying the same space. When therapists creatively use metaphor or empathy they are using the concept of the homospatial process.
In using the Janusian process the therapist is conceiving of two or more opposites or antitheses simultaneously. The term is derived from the Roman God, Janus, who looked in opposite directions simultaneously. To illustrate how the Janusian process is used, Rothenberg gives the example of how Albert Einstein made one of his important discoveries. Einstein realized that a person falling from a roof was both in motion and at rest at the same time and from this insight formulated his general theory of relativity.
But what connection is there between Einstein's theory of relativity and the creative process of psychotherapy? Rothenberg has found that creative writers,