Medicine and creativity in medical psychology

Abstract

The art of medicine is related to a precise decision-making process, which has evolved from strict scientific research towards the current practice of evidence-based medicine. Guided by the need to have safe and precise practice, doctors can rely on guidelines and data published in scientific journals to ensure both therapeutic and diagnostic success.Creativity can be considered to be human beings' capacity to promote growth of their own and other people's potentials.1 Through cognitive mechanisms acquired from the slow and persistent process of human evolution, the human mind is able to create an amazing field of ideas and models that aim to describe or "translate" nature through mathematics, biology, history, geology, physics and all other kinds of sciences. Use and improvement of these scientific concepts lead towards a wide variety of tools aimed at controlling, transforming and manipulating our world.The complexity of our behaviors and models are closely related to creativity. Regarding medical practice, creativity is unlikely to be limited to scientific research. It has also been correlated with day-to-day approaches towards patients: the so-called doctor-patient relationship.Creativity can be seen as the possibility of transcending the boundary between a concrete scenario determined by a certain disease (i.e. objective features such as physiological changes) and the subjective world of people undergoing such pathological experiences. Listening to, looking forward to, holding onto and paying attention to all the words and effects or feelings experienced by patients could be a way to practice the use of creativity in medical settings. Despite the simplicity of this practice, it is not widespread today, as can be deduced from the frequent complaints relating to the lack of "humanity" in the current medical environment.De Masi 2 argued that within evolution, our brain progressively miniaturized its circuits, multiplied all the functional levels and built internal areas of the cortex. These adaptive mechanisms were fundamental for synthesizing data provided from other brain areas and for developing further mental processes such as abstraction, anticipation and symbolization. Within this scenario, creativity appears as a mechanism for thinking about reality and its relationships.Without creativity, reality becomes cold, flavorless, impoverished, logical, operative and concrete. Without creativity, medicine would be limited to a scientific approach to life; physics and mathematics would be reduced to sciences without philosophy, and history would speak a language differing from literature.Newton, Bacon, John Stuart Mill and Darwin 2 followed the inductive method to develop concepts regarding unknown processes. Their strategy was based on a mentalist approach that aimed to reach "higher conclusions" and spread knowledge. In this process, mental work prevails over experimental research.Developing creativity requires neurocognitive, affective and psychosocial development. We take the view that creativity is an inte...