The Creative Process of Psychotherapy by Albert Rothenberg New York: W.  W. Norton, 1988,  xiv + 210 pp., $24.95

In reviewing the literature concerned with the study of creativity, the clinician will be struck by the miscellany of material, much of it grossly speculative and unoriginal. These writings utilize a variety of idiosyncratic explanations often derived from quasi-religious psychomysticism or energy radiation theories evolved from parapsychology. In the broad range of writings on creativity, Rothenberg's sober, systematic, and yet exciting contribution comes like a gentle, cool shower to soothe the tempests of the intensely dramatic writings. Using analogies between creativity, primary process, and “madness,” Rothenberg places much of creative thinking firmly in the conscious mind as part of deliberate, rational, secondary-process thinking. He has a long and distinguished history of scholarly work about the creative process, and this volume brings his research data, clinical experience, and creative acumen to bear on the process of psychotherapy itself. In this sense, his work is unique; that is, he applies research data to the process of ordinary, day-to-day psychotherapy. Although his research methodology is not described in great detail, he gives sufficient reference to his previous work, where presumably the methodology is documented. His main instrument is the in-depth psychological interview of numerous highly creative and original people, including Nobel Prize winners, famous playwrights, and poets, along with patients who have made changes based on the articulation and application of his ideas. His research methodology is also unique in comparison with questionnaire and other systematic research in that he engages these highly creative people in an ongoing process during the creative act itself, so that on a regular basis he can follow the act of creation in process. Rothenberg's work highlights the fact that “ordinary” psychotherapy is in itself a creative process.