Know the Box, Think Outside it

Creativity and innovation. It is almost conventional to trumpet their importance, their utmost necessity for progress. However, applying creativity in the actual world necessitates creativity.

Applied creativity in Mental Health is a process involving several stages. It starts from a mundane knowledge. What are the current concepts? How are they pertinent to the individual patient seeking our help? Specifically, what criteria does the patient meet? What treatments are recommended by the guidelines?

The next step is understanding. How and why did the authoritative experts construct the diagnostic criteria and treatment guidelines that are considered as evidence-based and good practice?

Understanding is a thinking process that might lead to questions. For example, are symptoms and complaints of a white bank employee in Manhattan or a middle class sub-urbanite homemaker in Sydney representative of feelings and concerns of a homeless teenager in a slum of Mumbai?