Sometimes I resort to the claim that what I say has zero or one interpretation: if I am not clear, at least I am unambiguous… It’s not true, though. There are at least as many interpretations as there are readers.

Here’s one interpretation I’d disagree with: lateral thinking changes the thinking but not the thinker. But certainly the focus is on changing the thinking. I suspect that improving lateral thinking skills, by practising lateral thinking, does lead to a tendency to “re-pattern negative beliefs” (whatever that may mean), but I know of no evidence for this.

As far as lateral thinking is concerned, it’s not obvious that there is a “box”. And if there is, what might it be? In practice, the only relatively fixed aspect of lateral thinking is “the problem”. But the practical application of lateral thinking does not demand exclusive focus on this problem; in fact, it is traditional “vertical” thinking that judges the value of the approaches generated by lateral thinking (value in the context of the problem).

Having said that, lateral thinking is most definitely about “re-patterning” – breaking free from the existing concepts being used to address a problem. Perhaps this is what you mean by “perspective shifting”? What you seem to be saying, though, is that your “perspective” is the part of you that is input into the process of perception. So perhaps “perspective shifting” is about changing (or suspending?) more or less core beliefs. If you identify the core beliefs as (part of) the problem, then the combination of vertical and lateral thinking might be useful in addressing it. But they might not. It depends on the extent to which the beliefs are purely conceptual, as opposed, in particular, to physiological (e.g. “visceral”, “repugnant”, “phobic”).