Abstract BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: THE CREATIVE DIALECTIC

This thesis explores the nature of dialectical principles as manifested in the creative act. The ancient metaphysic of dialectics, in which reality is conceived as a dynamic interplay of unified oppositions, is revived and given a practical, experiential emphasis in the resolution of ambivalence and one-sided views. The author draws upon his own experiences of creativity to shed light on the fertile middle ground where rigid oppositions come into conversation: the dialectical nexus. This thesis explores how the experience of the dialectical nexus serves creativity and psychological awakening. Relevant perspectives on dialectics are surveyed, with emphasis given to its philosophical origins, its clinical applications within the field of depth psychology, and its expression in modern neuroscientific models of the brain. Representative photographs and drawings by the author are included as illustration and testament to the experiences described within. This thesis finds the dialectical nexus to be a place of great potential, a primary source of energetic charge and therapeutic change. Bringing rigid polarities into dynamic conversation, dialectics is seen to restore a state of psychological flow, considered to be the natural condition and expression of the living psyche