Is it touched with madness?

The link between

creative genius and mental illness

Himalee Waidyasekera

Creativity - is it touched with madness?

“There is no great genius without some touch of madness.” Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD), Epistles

Creativity - is it touched with madness?Conflicting views

Both scientific evidence and folklore have suggested that creative genius is often associated with mental illness

But isn’t mental illness inherently destructive?

Creativity- is it touched with madness? Defining creativity Anecdotal evidence and views Proposed scientific theories Available evidence Conclusions

Van Gogh

During the last one and a half years of his life he had episodes of Severe mania and Severe depression; but he also produced 300 of his best paintings

Creativity- is it touched with madness?Speculation on this dates back to antiquity

400 BC – Plato used the term ‘enthousiasmos’ (divine madness) to describe creativity

300 BC – Aristotle believed all creative people are melancholics and some affected by diseases of black bile

The inference - creativity was associated with heightened consciousness, but not quite with mental illness

The 1800’s – The belief of association took it’s current form during the romantic era. – fashionable to be melancholic

Sawyer, R.K. Explaining creativity: the science of human innovation. Oxford University Press. 2006Berlin, R. M. Poets on Prozac: Mental illness, treatment and the creative process. John Hopkins University Press.2008

Defining creativity……. “Creativity is a mental and social process involving the

generation of new ideas or concepts”

Difficult to define as it is not a scientific concept. It is a culturally and historically specific idea that changes according to time and place

Without a stringent definition it is impossible to carry out serious scientific study

In recent scientific literature, most authors have defined creativity as either processes or products that are both original and worthwhile, as denoted by public

recognition or awards Waddell, C. Creativity and Mental Illness: Is There a Link? Can J Psychiatry, Vol 43, March 1998

Berlin, R. M. Poets on Prozac: Mental illness, treatment and the creative process. John Hopkins University Press.2008

Defining creativity…….

Defining creativity…….

Authors often suggest their own definitions Becker equated creativity with genius or intellectual giftedness Richards - intelligence is necessary but not sufficient for creativity Rothenberg defined creativity as the ability to simultaneously conceive

opposites or antitheses Andreasen and Glick – stressed the trait of independence Jamison emphasized flexibility and fluency Ludwig - creativity requires both unconventionality and a drive to

communicate Weisberg stressed that creativity required hard work and collaboration

Waddell, C. Creativity and Mental Illness: Is There a Link? Can J Psychiatry, Vol 43, March 1998Berlin, R. M. Poets on Prozac: Mental illness, treatment and the creative process. John Hopkins University Press.2008

Defining creativity…….

Fountain by Marce Duchamp 1917, (after the 1917 Society of independent artists exhibit)

Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major force in abstract impressionism

Possible links between creativity and mental illness

Are people with mental illness more creative than the general population?

If so, does this apply to all illnesses?

Are people with creative genius more likely to be mentally ill than others?

If so, what attributes of the illness are likely to be associated with creativity?

The link – psychoanalytic aspects

Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939) –

“Creativity is the sublimation of sexual

drives in the psychoanalytic depiction”

creative genius is a way of converting

unconscious conflict (esp. repressed

libidinal desires) into a more acceptable

form to overcome anxiety neurosis and creativity originated in conflicts stemming

from wish-fulfilment and biological drives

Creativity as sublimation?

Charlie Brown: "I have deep feelings of depression." "What can I do about it?""Snap out if it," replies Lucy.

Charles Schulz – creator of ‘Peanuts’Was it a way of grappling with his own depressive emotions?

Morgan, J. “Creativity and Mental Disorder” – Chapter 7 of Every Family in the Land: understanding prejudice and discrimination against people with mental illness. www.stigma.org

The link – psychoanalytic aspects Anthony Storr (1920-2001) –

Construed creativity as a product of the adaptability of human nature.

The dissonance between external reality and ourselves becomes manifest in creativity: the most creative of us may also be the most ‘at odds with themselves and the world’. e.g. those with neuroses

“Necessity may be the mother of invention, but dissatisfaction is its father.”

Dissatisfaction with external reality is allied to notions of neurosis

Jamison K. Mood disorders and patterns of creativity in British writers and artists. Psychiatry 1989;52:125–34.

The Sylvia Plath effect

Kaufman, J.C. The Sylvia Plath effect: Mental illness in eminent creative writers. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 35(1). 2001

Are creative writers are more susceptible to Mental illness, especially female poets?

The link – biological aspects Reduced latent inhibition? brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming

stimuli from the surrounding environment

Previously, failure to screen out stimuli was associated with

psychosis Part of this hypothesis: Reduced latent inhibition may be positive when combined with

high intelligence and good working memory but negative otherwise

Evolutionary element?

Peterson, J. Carson, S. Biological Basis For Creativity Linked To Mental Illness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. October 2003

The Psychedelic approach to creativity Psychedelic experience is connected with altered states

of consciousness (Tart 1972, 1975) -These may be induced by psychoactive drugs

The psychedelic approach to creativity is based on the idea that the normal state of consciousness restricts people's awareness and consciousness enhancement is needed to realize one's fullest creative potential (Barron, 1965; Masters and Houston, 1966, 1968; Abraham, McKenna and Sheldrake, 1992).

Creativity can be considered as a discrete class of psychedelic phenomena (Krippner, 1999).

Aldous HuxleyThe Doors of Perception is a 1954 book by Aldous Huxley detailing his experiences when taking mescaline.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."

Evidence– Creativity and Mental illness Scientific Studies done to explore a possible link date back to

the 1920’s.

14 early studies attempted to identify the presence of mental illness in creative individuals. But did not use standardized or contemporary definitions of mental illness.

Case Series: Jamison (1989) 38% of 47 British writers and artists had received

treatment for mood disorders at some time in their lives Post (1994) 291 biographies of eminent males. He found high

rates of psychiatric disorders in writers and artists

Methodological flaws:control or comparison groups not used, randomisation or blinding, all were retrospective

Post F. Creativity and psychopathology: a study of 291 world-famous men. Br J Psychiatry 1994;165:22–34.. Jamison K. Mood disorders and patterns of creativity in British writers and artists. Psychiatry 1989;52:125–34

Jamison, K. R. Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Free Press/Macmillan,1993.Jamison, K. R. Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity. Scientific American. February, 1995

Schumann’s Musical works

Evidence– Creativity and Mental illness

Case control studies:

Andreasen - three studies(1974, 1984 and 2008) 30 writers who were compared with 30 “non-creative” matched controls. Writers had significantly higher lifetime prevalence rates than controls for all mood disorders (80% versus 30%), for bipolar disorder (43% versus 10%), and for alcoholism (30% versus 7%)

Andreason (1987) There is a higher prevalence of affective disorder and creativity in the writers' first-degree relatives, suggesting that these traits run together in families and could be genetically mediated.

1. Andreasen N, Canter A. The creative writer: psychiatric symptoms and family history. Compr Psychiatry 1974;15:123

2. M. Kalian, V. Lerner, and E. Witzium Creativity and Affective Illness. Am J Psychiatry, April 1, 2002; 159(4): 675 - 676.

3. Andreasen N. Creativity and mental illness: prevalence rates in writers and their first-degree relatives. Am J Psychiatry 1987;144:1288–92.

The Evidence – Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity

1. Jamison, K. R. Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity. Scientific American. February, 19952. Andreasen et al. The relationship between creativity and mental disorders. Dialogues in Clinical Neurosciences.

10,2.121-264,2008

Creativity in People With Mental Illness Case-control studies have assessed creativity in

people with mental disorders using standardized definitions of mental illness

Mild mood disorders were associated with higher creativity, whereas severe illness was associated with lowest creativity, although differences between groups were not statistically significant in most studies

1. Funk J, Chessare J, Weaver M, Exley A. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, creativity, and the effects of methylphenidate. Pediatrics 1993;91:816–9.

2. Richards R, Kinney D, Lunde I, Benet M, Merzel A. Creativity in manic-depressives, cyclothymes, their normal relatives, and control subjects. J Abnorm Psychol 1988;97:281–8.

Contradictions in the Literature Rothenberg came to the conclusion that the

association between MI and creativity was not significant - And that MI actually impaired creativity and treatment improved it

Millett, a feminist, wrote: “During depression the world disappears. Language itself. One has nothing to say. Nothing”

Kuhn commented that scientists were often slow to accept their own rational evidence when it contradicted popular theories

Rothenberg A. Creativity and madness. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1990. Kuhn T. The structure of scientific revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1970.

Creativity- touched with madness? ? The need to romantically link genius and madness may

be rooted in society’s need to regard both as “deviant”

Some mental disorders, especially milder ones, may enhance creativity in some individuals; for instance, hypomania

The enthusiasm for associating creativity and mental illness has not been supported adequately by the evidence

Perhaps both mental illness and creativity have become metaphors for non-rational or spiritual needs that are sublimated in our rational, scientific age

“Men have called me mad,”

wrote Edgar Allan Poe,

“but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—

whether much that is glorious—

whether all that is profound—

does not spring from disease of thought—

from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.”