Creativity and mental illness
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Revision as of 23:29, 1 September 2008
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Mental illness and creativity are popularly considered to be related, particularly in the case of bipolar disorder. Although the association between bipolar disorder and creativity first appeared in the literature in the 1970s, the idea of a link between "madness" and "genius" is much older, dating back at least to the time of Aristotle, and reinforced by the views of the Romantic movement.
Creativity and bipolar disorder
There is a common belief, although without empirical basis, that many famous historical figures gifted with creative talents have been affected by bipolar disorder. Many of these have been retroactively "diagnosed" as suffering from bipolar disorder after their deaths based on letters, correspondence, contemporaneous accounts, or other material, most notably in Kay Redfield Jamison's book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Touched With Fire presents the argument that bipolar disorder may be found in a disproportionate numbers of people with creative talent such as artists, comedians, musicians, authors, performers, poets, and scientists, and some credit the condition for their creativity.
Several recent clinical studies have also suggested that there is a correlation between creativity and bipolar disorder, although it is unclear what the relationship is between the two.
Particularly strong links have been identified between creativity and mood disorders, particularly manic-depressive disorder (aka bipolar disorder) and depressive disorder (aka unipolar disorder). In Touched with Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison summarizes studies of mood-disorder rates in writers, poets and artists. She also explores research that identifies mood disorders in such famous writers and artists as Ernest Hemingway (who shot himself after electroconvulsive treatment), Virginia Woolf (who drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on), composer Robert Schumann (who died in a mental institution), and even the famed visual artist, Michelangelo.
A study by psychologist J. Philippe Rushton found creativity to correlate with intelligence and psychoticism. Another study found creativity to be greater in schizotypal than in either normal or schizophrenic individuals. While divergent thinking was associated with bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex, schizotypal individuals were found to have much greater activation of their right prefrontal cortex. This study hypothesizes that such individuals are better at accessing both hemispheres, allowing them to make novel associations at a faster rate. In agreement with this hypothesis, ambidexterity is also associated with schizotypal and schizophrenic individuals.
See Jamison, Kay R. (1996), Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, New York: Free Press, ISBN 0-684-83183-X
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