Creativity & Mental Illness - Links

Parallels can be drawn to connect creativity to Major Mental Illnesses including: Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Depression, Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD. For example, numerous studies have demonstrated correlations between creative occupations and people living with mental illness.

People with bipolar disorder experience episodes of both mania (an exceptionally elevated, irritable, or energetic mood) and depression. These episodes may be separate or depressed and manic symptoms may occur at the same time. The frequency of episodes varies. At least four depressive, manic, hypomanic (mild form of mania) or mixed episodes within a year is known as rapid-cycling bipolar disorder.

School of Medicine researchers have shown for the first time that a sample of children with bipolar disorder and children at high risk for the disease score higher on a creativity index than healthy children. The findings add to existing evidence that a link exists between mood disorders and creativity.

In the 1970s, Nancy Andreasen carried out the first empirical study of creativity and mental disorder at the University of Iowa. Andreasen studied the mental histories of a group of 30 prominent authors, expecting to find a strong correlation between creativity and schizophrenia.

The ancient Greeks were first to make the point. Shakespeare raised the prospect too. But Lord Byron was, perhaps, the most direct of them all: "We of the craft are all crazy," he told the Countess of Blessington, casting a wary eye over his fellow poets.

By Stacie Z. Berg There's been a lot of buzz about the link between bipolar and creativity. Many researchers and some individuals with bipolar have

History has always held a place for the "mad genius", the kind who, in a bout of euphoric fervor, rattles off revolutionary ideas, incomprehensible to the general population, yet invaluable to the population's evolution into a better adapted species over time. Is this link between creativity and mental illness one of coincidence, or are the two actually related?