On the creative process and the human capacity to construe

A discussion of "The Creative Process and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder," by Ben Rubenstein, Ph.D., and Morton Levitt, Ph.D. The human capacity for construal is emphasized as a basic process characterizing mental activity. Motivational and developmental phenomena can be better understood when construal is emphasized. The development of the capacity to construe is intimately linked in feedback fashion with the development of the subjective self which uses enactive, imagistic, and lexical modes of conceptualization. Construal is characterized as conflictual and as concomitantly involving powerful affective components. Examples are given in which the role of construal in artistic work, action, acting out, anxiety and object relatedness are emphasized. The basic creative act is the gradual construal of the subjective self on which all later creativity will have to be based.