creativity and mental illness

[alocispepraluger102]

http://www.newyorkcityvoices.org/2004aprjun/20040629.html

[porcy62]

I read the article and I think it's total BS. I am sorry that now it's too late in Italy to confutate it sentence by sentence. I'll do in the next days if you're really interested.

Edited October 25, 2007 by porcy62

[mikeweil]

Indeed BS. The authors of such articles lack and envy the creativity of others.

Schumann's disease cannot be completely cleared, but any symptoms similar to those of bipolar disease (which is simply a diagnostic hattrick, IMHO) were probably caused by late stages of a syphillitic infection. The author probably cannot read German, or he would have consulted the voluminous work on Schumann's late years published on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his death.

[Neal Pomea]

The article misses some apparent nuances about creativity.

For quite a while in the U.S. the Congress and Supreme Court have agreed that holding a copyright monopoly until no one remembers or cares anymore about a work is the greatest contributor to creativity. "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts..." Hold on to that Happy Birthday song!!!!

[alocispepraluger102]

I read the article and I think it's total BS. I am sorry that now it's too late in Italy to confutate it sentence by sentence. I'll do in the next days if you're really interested.

that would be interesting if you dont mind.

[alocispepraluger102]

I read the article and I think it's total BS. I am sorry that now it's too late in Italy to confutate it sentence by sentence. I'll do in the next days if you're really interested.

this is what brought the matter up.

this is the subject of this weekend's symphony concert where i live.

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/apps/p...NMENT/710250332

[Chuck Nessa]

The article misses some apparent nuances about creativity.

For quite a while in the U.S. the Congress and Supreme Court have agreed that holding a copyright monopoly until no one remembers or cares anymore about a work is the greatest contributor to creativity. "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts..." Hold on to that Happy Birthday song!!!!

Guess you never created anything. Oh, you did? When was that? Sorry, you don't own it anymore.

You can buy 2 acres in Utah, leave them to your children, they can leave them to their children and this shit can go on forever.

I create a musical masterpiece (novel, symphony, blues, poem, etc) and at some point the friggin' government can take my rights and give it to "everyone".

Why didn't I buy 2 acres in Utah?

Edited October 26, 2007 by Chuck Nessa

[paul secor]

The article misses some apparent nuances about creativity.

For quite a while in the U.S. the Congress and Supreme Court have agreed that holding a copyright monopoly until no one remembers or cares anymore about a work is the greatest contributor to creativity. "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts..." Hold on to that Happy Birthday song!!!!

Guess you never created anything. Oh, you did? When was that? Sorry, you don't own it anymore.

You can buy 2 acres in Utah, leave them to your children, they can leave them to their children and this shit can go on forever.

I create a musical masterpiece (novel, symphony, blues, poem, etc) and at some point the friggin' government can take my rights and give it to "everyone".

Why didn't I buy 2 acres in Utah?

Why bother to create anything? After a time, you can own someone else's creation - and do with it what you will - without having done a thing.

Edited October 26, 2007 by paul secor

[ejp626]

that means that many magnificent free jazz and classical works, whose beauty may not be discerned for decades, are 'fair game.'

bullshit

If the copyright police existed from time immemorial and pushed for the kinds of copyright law we see today, we would have roughly 10% of the great works of literature and classical music that do exist. All the great works borrow themes from other great works figuratively and literally, and in many cases it would be considered outright lifting of others work and litigable (from today's perspective). Of course, it is one thing to borrow from PD work to create new works and another to simply copy and resell it. Nonetheless, the founders believed in a much larger public sphere and that common ownership of art was part of that. I frankly think they were far wiser than we are today with our very narrow notions of property rights and the idea that everything can be locked down under patent and copyright.

[porcy62]

Here we are.

There may be a link between mental illness and creativity because that would explain why some of the greatest and most ground-breaking composers of classical music are believed to have been mentally ill. How do we know? Through evidence such as family history of mental illness, incarceration in the then-called "insane asylums," vivid descriptions of their emotional experiences in letters to intimates, and of course, in the music itself.

First the sample: supporting such theory implicate that at least a significative sample of other people are analized: industrial workers, farmers, blu collars, ecc, in one word a significative sample of the total population at the times of Schumann and the others, wich apparently has not be done. For obvious reasons: about Ives or Mahler we have some significative sources about their family's story, we couldn't do the same for a poor family of farmers in Tchaikovsky's Russia

Second the diagnosis of "mental illness" at times were at least "bizarre" and often totally unscientific at Schumann's times, so the fact that some of his relatives were in "insane asylum" could mean nothing.

Dr. Kogan has combined his professional pursuits by giving lectures and performances that explore how the psychiatric illnesses of the great composers influenced their creative output. He answered that there is an intimate connection between mental illness and creativity, especially with bipolar disorder. High with mania, people with bipolar experience increased energy, imagination, and rapidity of thought.

According to Arnold M. Ludwig's 1998 Creative Research Journal article "Method and Madness in the Arts and Sciences," a powerful relation exists between the presence or absence of mental illness and particular forms of creative expression both between and within the arts and sciences.

Ludwig showed that among the scientists, a higher lifetime prevalence of mental illness was found in social scientists (e.g., psychologists, economists) compared to natural scientists (e.g., biologists, physicists). Among the creative artists, the visual artists and writers had higher rates than the more formal professionals such as architects, musical composers and designers—with the more performance-oriented professions (e.g., musicians, dancers) rating in between these extremes. Creative artists in general had much higher rates of mental illness than the scientists.

These are purely statistic statements. It's not clear to wich kind of "mental illness" Ludwig is referring for: schizophrenics, psycotics, borderlines, depression or only bipolar disorder? It's pretty obvious that some kind of mental activitities, are much more stressfull then others for many reasons: for instance often the lack of social recognizions and success of artistic work can cause severe depressions and other "mental illness" to the authors. Even the "artistic" enviromental could be stressfull, look at the spread of drugs among musicians, not a good cure for anything.

Examining the literary creative artists further, he found that poets, who tended to be the most emotional and introspective among all writers, had much higher rates of mental illness than nonfiction writers (e.g., critics, journalists, biographers), who tended to be the most rational and analytic. Investigating the visual artists further, he found a comparable relationship. Those artists who belonged to a movement that emphasized more expressive or emotional elements had much higher rates of mental illness than those who belonged to movements that emphasized more formal and rational elements.

These thesys can be turned on: an individual that has a strong emotional and introspective mind is naturally oriented towards poetry rather then journalism, or towards an expressionist artistic movement rather then rationalist architecture. It's like saying that in the NBA there are a high rate of tall individual rather then in the horse racing.

Though Ludwig's findings do not define a clear relationship between mental illness and creativity, it does illustrate the presence or absence of mental illness and particular forms of creative expression. The pattern is that the more a profession relies on mathematical, formal and objective modes of creative expression or problem-solving, the lower the prevalence of mental illness in its members; the more a profession relies on emotional elements and subjective forms of creative expression, the higher the prevalence.

Like the above story of NBA and the horse racing.

A last personal consideration: as everyone who passed through a serious psychoalitic, or psychological, therapy knows, "mental illness" is definitely a rather vague notion.

Edited October 26, 2007 by porcy62

[robviti]

this is a hot, but hardly new, debate, and it's interesting to read members' reactions to this rather flimsy article that's three years old. when i was in grad school, a woman in my abnormal psychology course claimed: van gogh would not have been van gogh had he not been mad! this assertion inflamed me (owing in no small part to the fact that i didn't like this windbag). anyway, i decided then and there to write my final paper on creativity and madness. coincidentally, i used schumann as my main case study. it was very enlightening research as it helped me understand how mental illness has been diagnosed and treated (or mistreated as the case may be) over the centuries. additionally, i learned how the concepts of creativity and genius have also changed dramatically over time. i believe this fact is very relevant to this discussion, and yet few authors address this issue in their arguments.

there are scores of books on this subject, including Touched with Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist who has bipolar disorder. there's even a creativity and madness conference held in santa fe every year!

please keep in mind that many professionals who explore, write, and talk about the possible connections between creativity and mental illness do so because they want to help the general population understand that the mentally ill are real and sometimes extraordinary people. although this hidden agenda can influence their argument, it isn't a bad goal, is it?

[porcy62]

this is a hot, but hardly new, debate, and it's interesting to read members' reactions to this rather flimsy article that's three years old. when i was in grad school, a woman in my abnormal psychology course claimed: van gogh would not have been van gogh had he not been mad! this assertion inflamed me (owing in no small part to the fact that i didn't like this windbag). anyway, i decided then and there to write my final paper on creativity and madness. coincidentally, i used schumann as my main case study. it was very enlightening research as it helped me understand how mental illness has been diagnosed and treated (or mistreated as the case may be) over the centuries. additionally, i learned how the concepts of creativity and genius have also changed dramatically over time. i believe this fact is very relevant to this discussion, and yet few authors address this issue in their arguments.

there are scores of books on this subject, including Touched with Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist who has bipolar disorder. there's even a creativity and madness conference held in santa fe every year!

please keep in mind that many professionals who explore, write, and talk about the possible connections between creativity and mental illness do so because they want to help the general population understand that the mentally ill are real and sometimes extraordinary people. although this hidden agenda can influence their argument, it isn't a bad goal, is it?

I agree with you, though good intentions are not an excuse for an approximate article. Probably we should blame the journalist more then the doctor. As you said creativity, genius and mental illness are vague concept if you don't relate them to a historic and social contest. One thing that is totally lacking in the above article. And as I said no reference to the sample. There are more bipolar desorder in artists then in bus drivers, yes because if you want such driving licence you can't be bipolar. The questions that can not have answers are: Are you mental ill because you're an artist or are you an artist because you're mental ill?

Edited October 26, 2007 by porcy62

[Neal Pomea]

I remember the Joe Klein biography of Woody Guthrie discussing speculation that the onset of Huntington's Disease may have given rise to Guthrie being rather prolix. In some public performances of Reuben James, he would sing "Tell me what were their names? Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?" Then he would sing from memory over 140 names of the crewmen.

But I don't see anything on Medline on the subject of Huntington's Disease that mentions this strange quirk with the language.