Creative minds: thebetween mental illness and creativity

[Guest guest]

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All too often, creativity goes hand in hand with mental illness. Now we're

starting to understand why. Roger Dobson reports

 

At first glance, Einstein, Salvador Dali, Tony Hancock, and Beach Boy Brian

Wilson would seem to have little in common. Their areas of physics, modern art,

comedy, and rock music, are light years apart. So what, if anything, could

possibly link minds that gave the world the theory of relativity, great surreal

art, iconic comedy, and songs about surfing?

 

 

According to new research, psychosis could be the answer. Creative minds in all

kinds of areas, from science to poetry, and mathematics to humour, may have

traits associated with psychosis. Such traits may allow the unusual and

sometimes bizarre thought processes associated with mental illness to fuel

creativity. The theory is based on the idea that there is no clear dividing line

between the healthy and the mentally ill. Rather, there is a continuum, with

some people having psychotic traits without having the debilitating symptoms.

 

Mental illnesses have been around for thousands of years. Evolutionary theory

suggests that in order for them to be still here, there must be some kind of

survival advantage to them. If they were wholly bad, it's argued, natural

selection would have seen them off long ago. In some cases the advantage is

clear. Anxiety, for example, can be a mental illness with severe symptoms and

consequences, but it is also a trait that at a non-clinical level has survival

advantages. In healthy proportions, it keeps us alert and on our toes when

threats are sensed.

 

It's now increasingly being argued that there are survival advantages to others

forms of illness, too, because of the links between the traits associated with

them and creativity. " It can be difficult for people to reconcile mental illness

with the idea that traits may not be disabling. While people accept that there

are health benefits to anxiety, they are more wary of schizophrenia and manic

depression, " says Professor Gordon Claridge, emeritus professor of abnormal

psychology at Oxford University, who has edited a special edition of the journal

Personality and Individual Differences, looking at the links between mental

illness and creativity. " There is now a feeling that these traits have survived

because they have some adaptive value. To be mildly manic depressive or mildly

schizophrenic brings a flexibility of thought, an openness, and risk-taking

behaviour, which does have some adaptive value in creativity. The price paid for

having those traits is that some will have mental illness. "

 

Research is providing support for the idea that creative people are more likely

to have traits associated with mental illness. One study found that the

incidence of mood disorders, suicide and institutionalisation to be 20 times

higher among major British and Irish poets in the 200 years up to 1800. Other

studies have shown that psychiatric patients perform better in tests of abstract

thinking. Another study, based on 291 eminent and creative men in different

fields, found that 69 per cent had a mental disorder of some kind. Scientists

were the least affected, while artists and writers had increased diagnoses of

psychosis.

 

" Most theorists agree that it is not the full-blown illness itself, but the

milder forms of psychosis that are at the root of the association between

creativity and madness, " says Emilie Glazer, experimental psychologist and

author of one of the Oxford journal papers. " The underlying traits linked with

mild psychopathology enhance creative ability. In severe form, they are

debilitating. "

 

Research is also showing that traits associated with different mental illnesses

have different effects on creativity. The creativity needed to develop the

theory of relativity, is, for example, very different from that required for

producing surreal paintings, or poetry.

 

Research is now homing in on whether the psychosis that is linked to different

types of creativity comes through schizophrenia and schizotypy traits, through

manic-depressive or cyclothymic traits, or traits associated with the autism and

Asperger's disorders. A study at the University of Newcastle found significant

differences between artistically creative people and mathematicians. While the

artists showed schizotypy traits, mathematicians did not, and that fits in with

the idea that mathematics and engineering, which require attention to detail,

are closer to the autistic traits than to psychosis.

 

" Affective disorder perpetuates creativity limited to the normal, " says Glazer,

" while the schizoid person is predisposed to a sense of detachment from the

world, free from social boundaries and able to consider alternative frameworks,

producing creativity within the revolutionary sphere. Newton and Einstein's

schizotypal orientation, for instance, enabled their revolutionary stamp in the

sciences. "

 

The stereotypical images of mad scientists working alone and preferring foaming

beakers to friends, abound in literature, and reflect a popular perception of

the aloof, detached and obsessive genius. But the idea goes back even further.

2000 years ago in Rome, the philosopher Seneca was obviously already on the case

when he wrote: " There is no great genius without a tincture of madness. "

 

It's no joke: Comedians and depression

 

Heard the one about the man who went to the doctor to get help for his

depression? He's told to go and see a show with a well known comedian who would

make him laugh and lift his spirits. " But that's me, " says the patient. " I'm the

comedian. "

 

The joke, related by Rod Martin, author of 'The Psychology of Humor - An

Integrative Approach', is apparently something of a favourite among comedians,

who are known to be prone to depression, from the late Tony Hancock and Spike

Milligan, to Stephen Fry and Paul Merton.

 

One theory is that humour is developed in response to depression, and that it

works as a coping mechanism. One study, reported by Martin, looked at 55 male

and 14 female comedians, all famous and successful. It found that comedians

tended to be superior in intelligence, angry, suspicious, and depressed.

 

In addition, their early lives were characterised by suffering, isolation, and

feelings of deprivation, and, he says, they used humour as a defence against

anxiety, converting their feel ings of suppressed rage from physical to verbal

aggression. " The comedic skills required for a successful career may well be

developed as a means of compensating for earlier psychological losses and

difficulties, " says Martin. A second study did not find higher levels, although

comedians had significantly greater preoccupation with themes of good and evil,

unworthiness, self-deprecation, and duty and responsibility.

 

" A significant proportion of comedians do seem to suffer more with depression, "

says Professor Gordon Claridge, emeritus professor of abnormal psychology at

Oxford University. " Comedy seems to act as a way of dealing with depression. I

think there is an emotionality and cognitive style that goes along with these

depressive disorders which seems to feed creativity. "

 

Salvador Dali was not just a great artist. He also met the criteria for several

psychosis diagnoses, a mixture of schizophrenic and depressive. He may also have

been paranoid, as well having antisocial, histrionic, and narcissistic

disorders. " Dalí and his contribution to the history of art highlights that

abnormality is not necessarily disagreeable - or to be so readily dismissed as a

sign of neurological disease. For without his instability, Dalí may not have

created the great art that he did, " says Caroline Murphy of Oxford.

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Very well put John! I hope you have that Angina under control these days?

 

Ray in England.

 

 

Posted by: " John Polifronio " counterpnt johnpol5911

Tue May 12, 2009 8:51 pm (PDT) Cannot people be " rigidly " sane, suffocatingly

rational? How can we regard people like Einstein as " having traits associated

with psychosis, " and yet see the extent to which mankind benefits from these

" traits? " It's the predictible and conventional personalities that appear, to

me, out of touch with reality. When we speak of " reality, " we certainly mean

more than " average, " " commonplace, " " ordinary, " etc., because these words fail

miserably to encompass what we mean by reality. Reality is always " beyond "

conventionality.

 

I see a different continuum than is discussed here. The continuum I see spans

from the center outward. The center, which contains all those personalities that

are " real, " in that they reveal the failings, the discontinuities, the suprises,

even the occassionaly bizarre aspects that we humans display in our behaviors,

thoughts and feelings. The extremes are at " both " ends. At one end are what are

presently mis-described as " psychotics. "

Mis-described, because, at the other end are the rigidly sane personalities I

mentionied earlier, who are equally, i.e. also, severely out of tune with their

environment.

 

These are the people that most of our social scientists usually don't have

occassion to label for their " mental illnesses. " Their judgmental attitudes,

their false sense of moral superiority, which is claimed simply on the basis of

the uniforimity they reveal along with the other automaton-like people around

them, and all the other personality traits we associate with these people.

They're also disturbed, just to the extent that they reveal more of that

rigidity I speak of; just to the extent that most social scientists are careful

to leave them out of their talk of psychotic personalities.

jp

 

 

 

 

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