Hello and welcome to the psychology podcast with Dr Scott Barry Kaufman where we give

you insights into the mind brain behavior and creativity. Each episode will feature a new

guest who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in.

Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Oh, Today I'm very excited to have Michelle Root Bernstein on the podcast.

Michelle is a Creativity researcher, writer, Kennedy Center teaching artist, an adjunct faculty member at Michigan State University.

Her new book is called Inventing Imaginary Worlds, from Childhood Play to Adult Creativity across the... imagining huge fan of your work. Well, thanks for asking me. And I loved your new book. I mean, I followed

your work for a very long time and was it very excited to see you put a lot of it into, this book summarizes, I think probably over a decade of your research.

Would you say that's correct?

Yeah, I would.

Because I've been working on the book for, yeah, 10 or more years in one way or another.

Yeah.

So I was first excited just by the title and then I got tends to read the book and it very much lives up to the title.

You know, I'd be lying if I didn't say there was a big personal interest in this book.

I invented lots of imaginary worlds.

I think that my whole childhood was one big

imaginary world. I can't remember thinking back my childhood of anything any

aspect of reality that I remember. All I remember are my fantasies.

Is that weird?

Yeah, well I don't know if it's weird.

It means they were important to you and they actually obviously

fulfill some kind of function for you.

They very much did.

...