There are many famous creative individuals of whom it has been claimed that they had mental health problems. A handful of examples listed by Nettle (2001) are presented below.
Table 1.1
Famous creative individuals with „psychotic‟ traits
Creative group Name
Poets Baudelarie, Lord Byron, Coleridge, T. S. Eliot, Keats, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound, Shelley, Dylan Thomas, Tennyson, Walt Whitman
Writers J. M. Barrie, Joseph Conrad, Noel Coward, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Victor Hugo, Henry James, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Immanuel Kant, Marcel Proust, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Tolstoy, Evelyn Waugh, Tennesse Williams, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf
Composers/Musicians Schumann, Beethoven, Berlioz, Bruckner, Chopin, Dowland, Elgar, Handel, Hjolst, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Wagner
Visual Artists Borromini, Cézane, di Chirico, Gaugin, Goya, Van Gough, Kandinsky, Michelangelo, Modigliani, Munch, Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko
Note. Taken from Nettle, 2001.
Table 1.1, and there are other well-known names that are not listed here. An interesting finding by Schaller (1997) indicated that creative eminence may actually lead to a higher prevalence of psychopathology amongst these groups, alcoholism and substance abuse being especially implicated. There is another possibility which is that researchers may interpret behaviours otherwise viewed as ordinary as somehow extraordinary, thus committing a classic example of confirmation bias (Nettle, 2001). However, as Nettle was also careful to point out, when interpreting lists such as these it is important to note a number of things. Firstly, they suggest a relationship between psychopathological thought and creative recognition more so than creative capacity or ability; these individuals have been specifically selected for these so called „eminence studies‟ because of their enhanced creativity rather than a general capacity for creative production. Second is a point which has already been stated: there are millions of people who experience the often entirely disabling and all-consuming realities of mental disorder who never achieve creative „greatness‟. Nettle expresses it well: “To pluck the flower of art from the nettle of psychosis takes unusual intelligence and discipline, and most people high in psychoticism do not possess this” (2001, p. 149). Psychoticism (often known simply as „P‟) is an inherited personality trait which gives someone a vulnerability to psychosis (Eysenck, 1993; Nettle, 2001). This is said to exist on a continuum, so the further up the psychoticism scale one goes the more likely they are to develop a form of psychosis, though this is not guaranteed as triggers and environmental factors are also involved. It is also worth noting the sizeable number of individuals listed in Table 1.1
and elsewhere who underline their tumultuous lives by committing suicide at the end of them, a finding reported disproportionately amongst poets and writers (Kottler, 2005).
Bipolar disorder is frequently reported in a disproportionate number of creative individuals (Andreasen, 2008; Kottler, 2005), and the thinking styles resembling symptoms of schizophrenia have also been associated with unique and creative output (Nettle, 2005; Claridge, Pryor, & Watkins, 1990; Kinney et al., 2000-2001).
Schizophrenia is less frequently linked to literary creativity than the affective disorders (Post, 1994), though more literature in support of a relationship has appeared more recently by Sass (2000-2001) and Glazer (2009). An astute observation is made by Sass about the differences between schizophrenic and bipolar thought and the respective effects these have on creators. Sass claims that symptoms of schizophrenia may include detachment, nonconformity, and a sense of alienation, all of which go against the philosophy of the Romantics, which is reflected in the paucity of „schizophrenic-type‟ symptoms and behaviours observed during that time. As mentioned above, there exist many observations of „affective-type‟ symptoms and behaviours during the Romantic period. Schizophrenic thought, however, has been said to resemble some 20th century thought which, as put by Glazer “demanded an identical removal of the individual from the constraints of social norms” (2009, p. 757), a behaviour which essentially defines the
impulsive nonconformity subscale (Claridge & Beech, 1995). Sass (1992) observes that
as being correlated with distinct psychopathologies of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, respectively, they have also influenced changes in accepted notions of what is regarded as „creative‟.
Forrest (1976) claimed that a certain metaphorical language is frequently and purposely used by people with schizophrenia and that this is analogous to the creative processes of many artists. Forrest also stated that these cognitive processes were likely shared by creative people and those with schizophrenia. Nettle (2001) illustrates the parallels between delusional thought and creativity, especially literary creativity. He conveys a delusion described to him by a person with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The tale involved conspiracy, deceit, was relayed with intricate detail, and included its own made- up, yet highly sophisticated scientific theories. According to Nettle, the delusion appeared as good as any „whodunit‟, and similarities of this nature are palpable (Nettle, 2001; Kottler, 2005), and elegantly reinforce the associations between the constructs. Nobel Laureate and mathematician John Nash is one example of a renowned creative individual diagnosed with schizophrenia, (the book, and later film, „A Beautiful Mind‟ portray his story). The parallels between the dimensional constructs of both creativity and psychosis, that is, that they both exist on respective continua, are also noted by Glazer (2009), however it is suggested that concentrating on the oversimplified question of whether schizophrenia or affective disorders are linked to creativity, that is, the „either/or‟ type distinction that is often made, it would be more beneficial to look at the
dimensional nature of these constructs and to study them with this in mind. Claridge and Blakey (2009) cite evidence to suggest that creativity may be related to both affective disorders and schizotypy due to them being different manifestations of a common underlying process (unitary theory). It is easy to see how bizarre ideation and associative „leaps‟, typical of schizotypal thought, in the absence of a psychiatric diagnosis, could aid various types of creativity, be they storytelling, elaborate poetry or prose, complex narratives and plays, or intricate theories and works of art. However, as will be discussed in more detail in the next section, it is more difficult to imagine this in someone with schizophrenia, with the cognitive constraints that often go hand-in-hand with such a diagnosis.
Nettle (2001) provides evidence to support the notion that healthy individuals in creative professions have an overlapping profile with individuals with schizophrenia in terms of their underlying cognitive processing. These individuals sample a wider range of stimuli than those who do not have schizophrenia, and can cope with and integrate several signals being fed to them, with material entering consciousness which they were supposed to ignore being used for creative solutions. When investigating a sample of artists and architects Nettle found that both groups had increased scores on the schizophrenia subscale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2, 1989). What was suggested was that these individuals perhaps possessed the same
capacity to take leaps of the mind in order to reach different and out-of-the-ordinary outcomes.
Prentky (2000-2001) went some way to try to understand the link between creativity and mental illness, providing two explanations as to why there are such disproportionate numbers of creative individuals with symptoms of psychiatric disorders. Firstly, the positive symptoms (such as aberrant perceptions and beliefs, paranormal experiences) and the negative symptoms (social withdrawal and an inability to experience pleasure) do not have the same „life cycle‟. That is to say, positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions are shorter lived than negative ones such as flat affect and „anhedonia‟, which is a deficit of positive feelings (Nettle, 2001). The fact that affective symptoms are more enduring has implications for creativity because a low mood can result in low motivation. Secondly, the base rates for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder vary significantly from country to country, meaning data from studies conducted in different countries may not be comparable. Prentky (2000-2001) states that symptoms related to depression and „schizotypy‟, subclinical traits which resemble these disorders (to be defined fully in section 2.4), are more common in non-clinical populations when compared to symptoms relating to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Barrantes-Vidal (2004) suggests the paradox that is found whereby psychoses are related to creativity (but not milder neuroses), despite the severity of symptoms, could result from the dimensional nature of mental illness, a view which supposes that all mental disorders are connected
with „normality‟ (Claridge, 1998; Poulton et al., 2000; Johns & van Os, 2001). This dimensional view sees psychoses as “extreme pathological variants of otherwise normal personality dispositions” (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1976, cited in Barrantes-Vidal, 2004, p. 60), and states that the difference between psychoticism, the temperamental basis of psychosis, and clinical psychosis itself lies in the quantitative difference between these dimensional traits. These traits are said to be stable and “possibly adaptive” (Barrantes- Vidal, 2004, p. 61).
Prentky (1979) claimed that creativity and psychopathology were alike in terms of similar, shared cognitive processes, and evidence from neuropsychology and cognitive psychology has been found for this since that time (Claridge & Blakey, 2009). These shared processes include the intuitive acceptance of large amounts of information along with more detailed analysis of a limited body of information. Prentky‟s discussion of the type of thought process common to pathology and creativity allowed the development of experimental operations for testing such research questions with some degree of specificity. Hasenfus and Magro (1976) noticed the similarities between measures of creativity and those used to measure a so-called „schizophrenic performance deficit‟ and thus postulated a correspondence between the empirical constructs of schizophrenia and creativity. They argued that the “operational definitions of creativity are often virtually
identical to the operational definitions of schizophrenia” (p. 347), and highlight that
tendency to make unusual links and connections, were both facets of the same cognitive propensity. Earlier studies looking at this issue also found that the equivalence could result from both processes being involved in the sampling of a wide range of stimuli (Dykes & McGhie, 1976), an ability to express imagery freely (MacKinnon, 1961, cited in Keefe & Magro, 1980), and being adept at engaging in pictorial thinking, which is the “sampling of multiple cues and combining them into statistically rare combinations” (Bogen, 1969, cited in Keefe & Magro, 1980, p. 396). Keefe and Magro (1980) studied the creative performance in 10 paranoid schizophrenia patients, 10 non-paranoid patients, 10 non-psychotic psychiatric controls, and 10 „normal‟ patients. Non-paranoid patients were significantly more creative than paranoid patients and psychotic controls, and generated a significantly higher percentage of „highly creative‟ responses on the Alternative Uses Task and other creative thinking tasks. Keefe and Magro suggested that more unusual thought processes, impulses and imagery were demonstrated by the participants with schizophrenia, along with a willingness to express these, and that this pattern was reflected amongst the more creative people in the sample.
The associations between psychopathology and creativity, though well-researched remain somewhat unclear, though general agreement of this relationship exists and empirical evidence continues to be found in support of this. However, there are a number of other relevant factors which must be acknowledged when reviewing and presenting this age- old relationship between creativity and psychopathology.