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Although manic-depressives are neither "mad" nor "crazy", research suggests that brilliant artists and writers may be more likely to have a manic-depressive personality compared to those of the general population. However, this finding is steeped in controversy and much about this relationship remains unknown. For example, does depression lead to creation? Or is it the reverse? No one doubts the fact that many of the world's great creative geniuses also suffered from mental illnesses - serious depression being one of these. Vincent Van Gogh was plagued by paralyzing depressive bouts, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions. His furious creative manias inspired his greatest paintings, but were followed by debilitating depressions that eventually resulted in suicide. Sylvia Plath, perhaps one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, was allegedly traumatized by the sudden death of her father when she was eight. Her frequent manic-depressive periods and her tremendous rage, loneliness, and revengeful desires, destroyed her life. At 31, she too committed suicide. James Joyce, whose book FINNEGAN'S WAKE (1939) is often described as evidence of the author's psychosis, took "keen pleasure in sounds" during depressive periods lasting a week or more. Such imaginary sounds frequently described as "voices" by psychiatric patients is an often-reported psychotic symptom. Friedrich Nietzsche, long thought to have died from complications of syphilis, now seems to have had depressive bouts attributable to frontotemporal dementia. This is according to Drs M. Orth and M. Trimble writing in the ACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA in December 2006..
Psychiatric disorders, in themselves, do not make people creative in all likelihood. Nor are the vast majority of the world's greatest creative talents diagnosable as mentally ill. Yet something unusual frequently exists within such individuals.
Several researchers have explored possible links between manic-depression and creation over the years.
A study of musicians by Dr. Hagop Akiskal, a psychiatrist from the University of Tennessee in Memphis, found that temperament has a great deal to do with musical creativity. Dr. Akiskal discovered that the most creative musicians (in this case, Blues singers) tended to have definite manic-depressive personalities. Such individuals experience profound mood swings from very high to very low. Moreover, Dr. Akiskal revealed, compared to the general population, musicians are more energetic, extroverted, and prone towards insomnia. Furthermore, although they are also more sensitive and perceptive, they tend to more often than normally drink heavily, have stormy marriages, express greater degrees of pessimism more readily, claim to come from turbulent childhoods and families, and be plagued by personal tragedy. Nevertheless, Dr. Akiskal observes, such creative people are still able to create. And rather than despite these factors, perhaps it could be because of them.
Dr. Nancy Andreasen, a psychiatrist from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City, was curious about the high number of highly creative people who have allegedly committed suicide. In a study of highly creative members of the famous University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Dr. Andreasen found that nearly half of these members (43 per cent) were diagnosable as manic-depressives. Sadly, she reports that already two subjects she studied have killed themselves.
Dr. Kay Jamison of the Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore conducted a retrospective study of 47 of the most famous recent artists, poets, novelists, playwrights, and biographers in the U.K. Dr. Jamison discovered that the majority manifest symptoms of various mood disorders and eighteen (38 per cent) have been treated for depression. Currently, only about three per cent of the U.K. population is treated for depression.
Dr. Ruth Richards of Harvard University's School of Medicine has for some time been interested in unraveling any genetic or familial link within this intriguing depression - creativity relationship. Dr. Richards uncovered baffling evidence that manic depression does appear very often in the families of very creative individuals. However, those family members who showed only mild signs or no signs at all of the disorder tended to be the most creative members of the family. Thus, if a person can somehow escape the fullest impact of depression, that can possibly aide them in realizing their fullest extent of their talent.
Still, this line of research asks more questions than it answers.
Dr. Victor Reus of the University of California Medical School in San Francisco has proposed the "mania high" theory as to why depression may aid creativity. Dr. Reus maintains that a mild (but not severe) manic feeling can result in increased energy and confidence. This gives individuals the courage and will to test new ideas. Such a mania-induced "high" increases both the number and rate of creative thoughts. It is as if all the capacities of all the senses were intensified all at once.
Dr. Peter Forster of the same University argues for the "incubator" theory as an alternative. Dr. Forster contends that depression can give a withdrawn person more time than otherwise. This added time allows for added awareness and insight to emerge. Hence, when the mind turns deeply inward, many of its unexplored channels and eddies can be navigated and traveled - as if the mind were, indeed, a great river.
But there are alternative views. In a major review of the field, Dr. C. Waddell of the Department of Psychiatry at McMaster University in Ontario concluded in the March 1998 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY that 'There is limited scientific evidence to associate creativity with mental illness. Despite this, many authors [researchers] promoted a connection.' Dr. Z. Rihmer and two psychiatrist colleagues from Budapest conclude in
PSYCHIATRIA HUNGARICA in 2006 that the international literature regarding the association of creativity and psychopathology shows 'that people with salient social and artistic creativity suffer more frequently from psychiatric illnesses than the average population' but the types of illnesses and the effects that such illnesses have on creativity is not at all clear.
In the October 2006 Gresham College Lecture, psychiatrist Dr. Raj Persaud of the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals in London perhaps sums up the state of the debate best: 'There's a big controversy about whether there's a link between mental illness and creativity. A lot of people notice that a lot of creative people do seem to have psychological problems but the debate is about whether that link is real - and what that then tells us about creativity. There's quite a strong argument for saying it's not a real link . . . It's likely that if you put anyone's life under close biographical inspection, then psychological dysfunction of some kind will be uncovered. The other point is that there are large numbers of people with quite severe psychological dysfunction, and it's quite clear that for a lot of them that dysfunction gets in the way of their being creative.'
If there is a great river that needs to be navigated and traveled, some drown.
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