Manic Depression And Creativity
What do highly creative individuals have in common with those who suffer from manic depression? Apparently, quite a bit. At least that's what one academic study claims.
The research conducted by members of the department of psychiatry at Stanford University, found that exceptionally creative people share character traits with individuals who suffer from such mental illnesses as manic depression. Manic depression is also referred to as bipolar disorder.
According to lead researcher Dr. Connie Strong, healthy artists are much more likely to be similar to those individuals with manic depression than to healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that the emotional range is the bipolar patient's advantage," she noted.
Among the character traits the healthy artists shared with those with manic depression included a tendency to have a more open personality, to be more neurotic and moody. Strong explained that "openness" in this use means that an individual is willing to explore new experiences in addition to being imaginative, curious and unconventional by society's standards.
Those with neurotic tendencies, she continued, tend to be more anxious, have lower self esteem as well as a lower threshold for stress than others. They additionally may feel alienated, victimized and resentful, she noted.
She added, "Something gives people with manic depression [a creative] edge, and I think it's emotional range."
Dr. Strong points out that both manic depression and creativity are "genetically driven." Those individuals with manic depression who participated in the study, Dr. Strong said were many times more creative than those individual who did not suffer from manic depression.
Manic depression is a mental illness whose hallmark symptoms are the disparate mood swings from severely depressed to a euphoric high. The swings are distinct enough that the depressive episodes can include feelings of helplessness and hopelessness as well as thoughts of suicide.
The manic episodes, by contrast, involve feelings of grandeur, a flood of creative ideas, an inappropriate feeling that absolutely nothing is impossible, and at time psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations.
