This is a most interesting and provocative book. It attempts to define creativity, which in itself is daunting, and then attempts to develop an instrument to measure it in some quantifiable way. It is a somewhat difficult book to read for the non-experiment-minded, and it is a difficult book to review.

Freud felt that primary process plays a crucial role in the creative process, and Ernst Kris expanded on that with his concept of regression in the service of the ego as central to creativity. Basically, Smith and Carlsson agree with Kris, with some minor reservations. One theory that the authors pursue is that defensive structures block access to one's primitive internal state, which, in this view, is essential to the creative process.

In attempting to develop a research model to test for creativity,