The link between creativity and mental illness
January 24, 2012 in NEWS by Suzanne Elvidge
Vincent van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Linda Hamilton and Ludwig van Beethoven all had (or may have had) bipolar disorder. Eugene O’Neill suffered from depression, as did Brooke Shields after the birth of her baby. The link between creativity and mental illness has long been reported on an anecdotal basis, and a study reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry does seem to support this connection.
The team of researchers analysed Swedish registries between 1973 and 2003, looking for the likelihood that people with creative occupations had received in-patient treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or depression. They also analysed their relatives who did not have mental health diagnoses.
Despite anecdotal evidence, there was no link between depression and creativity. However, compared with controls, people with bipolar disorder, or siblings of people with either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, were more likely to work in the creative professions, suggesting a genetic link, potentially via a gene called neuregulin 1.
Kyaga, S., Lichtenstein, P., Boman, M., Hultman, C., Langstrom, N., & Landen, M. (2011). Creativity and mental disorder: family study of 300 000 people with severe mental disorder The British Journal of Psychiatry, 199 (5), 373-379 DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.110.085316
Interesting. That’s slightly at odds from the work reported in Kay Redfield Jamison’s “Tocuhed with Fire”, where (from my poor memory) biographies of prominent persons where checked for mental illness correlated with creative endeavours. Mind, the whole area is rife problematic data, from sample selection to shifting definitions of mental illness. (Neurasthenia anyone?)