Researchers establish link between creative genius and mental illness.

[Kire]

Stanford researchers establish link between creative genius and mental illness

Posted on Tuesday, May 21 @ 18:43:50 EDT by ChrisMcKinstry
mindpixel - Digital Mind Modeling Project

Neuroscience & Psychology STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship.

Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's advantage," said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives people with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range."

Strong is a research manager in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science's bipolar disorders clinic and a doctoral candidate at the Pacific Graduate School. She is presenting preliminary results during a poster presentation today (May 21) at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association Meeting in Philadelphia.

The current study is groundbreaking for psychiatric research in that it used separate control groups made up of both healthy, creative people and people from the general population.


More: http://www.mindpixel.com/article.php?sid=99

[EFerrari]

1. Really interesting. What do you make of this?

There are bi-polar tendencies in my family, as well as ADD. And it's full of musicians, painters, writers and actors.

[hedgehog]

2. Look for the book, Touched with Fire by Kaye R. Jamison

It explores the cross connections and helped me understand my illness as well.

[derbstyron]

4. That's a great book!

It's helped me get through a lot as a writer.

I don't mean it in an egotistical way but when I get really down
and am struggling I tell myself the reason I have this illness
is that I am suppose to be creative/writer.

That thought has gotten me through a LOT of dark, dark nights.

[Eurobabe]

5. She's a great writer, I just finished Unquiet Mind

Trying to figure out if this damn seasonal depression I get every year in the spring is truly that or something else. Stay tuned.

[hedgehog]

6. I read the book again recently, and a light went on, so to speak.

I always hit my depth in early spring and late August. I could never figure out why since the popular press describes Seasonal Affect Disorder as a winter illness. Jameson's book documnets that for the artists and writers she studied, Spring and fall were the bad times. She speculated that this may be due to the rate of change in the amoint of light. I started using a bright light for half an hour every morning, and so far so good. No more winter drowsiness and no Spring blues.

[DemExpat]

8. Ooooh, Spring is the worst for me.....

now I feel it starting to lift up for the summer. :kick:

I really need to try this light by next Fall - wonder if there is something affordable to try at home......

:hi:

DemEx

[blueblitzkrieg]

3. I wish my mental illness gave me creativity...

instead it just murdered all of it and has left me disinterested in near everything. But then again, I'm not bipolar...just unipolar.

BTW I agree with the poster above, Touched With Fire is really good, especially the stuff on Lord Byron.

[Kire]

7. Biological Basis For Creativity Linked To Mental Illness

Biological Basis For Creativity Linked To Mental Illness

Psychologists from the University of Toronto and Harvard University have identified one of the biological bases of creativity.

The study in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. Other people's brains might shut out this same information through a process called "latent inhibition" - defined as an animal's unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs. Through psychological testing, the researchers showed that creative individuals are much more likely to have low levels of latent inhibition.

"This means that creative individuals remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment," says co-author and U of T psychology professor Jordan Peterson. "The normal person classifies an object, and then forgets about it, even though that object is much more complex and interesting than he or she thinks. The creative person, by contrast, is always open to new possibilities."

Previously, scientists have associated failure to screen out stimuli with psychosis. However, Peterson and his co-researchers - lead author and psychology lecturer Shelley Carson of Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard PhD candidate Daniel Higgins - hypothesized that it might also contribute to original thinking, especially when combined with high IQ. They administered tests of latent inhibition to Harvard undergraduates. Those classified as eminent creative achievers - participants under age 21 who reported unusually high scores in a single area of creative achievement - were seven times more likely to have low latent inhibition scores.

The authors hypothesize that latent inhibition may be positive when combined with high intelligence and good working memory - the capacity to think about many things at once - but negative otherwise. Peterson states: "If you are open to new information, new ideas, you better be able to intelligently and carefully edit and choose. If you have 50 ideas, only two or three are likely to be good. You have to be able to discriminate or you'll get swamped."

More: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031001061055.htm

[DemExpat]

9. Interesting, and this is recognizable to me....

but negative otherwise. Peterson states: "If you are open to new information, new ideas, you better be able to intelligently and carefully edit and choose. If you have 50 ideas, only two or three are likely to be good. You have to be able to discriminate or you'll get swamped."


My curiosity and openness to ideas and "everything" has been a burden to me, I think, but still prefer it to not giving a crap....:-)

DemEx

edit:
Not making any claim to creative genius here, though! :D