It is believed that creative thinking is a talent that cannot be developed or studied in any way. And creativity is a skill that is given only to some people from birth. The principles of lateral thinking, developed by Edward de Bono in 1968, refute these claims.
The creator of the lateral thinking system Edward de Bono is one of the most famous modern psychologists and writers. He is a globally recognized British expert in creative thinking. De Bono was born on May 19, 1933 in Malta. He studied at the university in his homeland. And also, at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, where he later taught. De Bono first developed his lateral thinking system in his book The Mechanisms of the Mind in 1969.
The term "lateral thinking" arose from lat. the words lateralis, which means - lateral or displaced. It is understood as a new non-standard way of thinking that differs from the traditional one. Edward de Bono created a scheme for creative (side) thinking in addition to the already existing logical (vertical) and fantasy (horizontal). The methods proposed by him allow one to find non-standard approaches and solutions to problems impossible for logic.
Logical thinking is aimed at step-by-step processing of information, unlike creative, which allows the movement of thought in any direction. Lateral thinking attracts intuition and thanks to this creates new original models and eliminates stereotypes. Moreover, this way of thinking is not opposed to de Bono's logical in his works, but rather complements and improves it.
In education, the main emphasis is on the development of vertical, logical thinking, because it is it that is most suitable for working with information. According to de Bono, the use of creative thinking of one’s own free will is as simple as logical. For this, there are special techniques that allow you to develop lateral thinking.
Creative thinking creates a new idea, but only thanks to logic does its realization become possible. According to the author, the possession of only one way of thinking is not enough for high productivity and success of a person in the modern developing world.