WriteSpa: Paradoxical Thinking

Studies involving fifty or so Nobel prize winners in physiology, chemistry, medicine and physics, as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and other artists, reveal a surprising similarity in their creative process.

Called 'Janusian thinking' after the Roman god Janus, it involves holding two opposing ideas or images in your mind at the same time. The researchers conclude most major scientific breakthroughs and artistic masterpieces occur through the process of formulating antithetical ideas and then trying to resolve them.