No great genius has ever existed without a strain of madness.” –Aristotle (384BC-322 BC).
The history and psychology of creativity have been an interesting and compelling study for centuries. Creativity is like a hot commodity and society tends to hold those who channel it in high regard. These high valued creative thinkers harness their imagination, motivations, and creative productivity in such a way that new paths are forged and previous human barriers broken across a wide array of disciplines and genres. Being able to access the part of the mind that stimulates original ideas and concepts is hard to test, but it is still believed by some to be the foundation inherent in the quest for knowledge and the exploration of the unknown (Pavitra, Chandrashekar & Choudhry, 2007). In “Cradles of Eminence: A Provocative Study of the Childhoods of over 400 Famous Twentieth-Century Men and Women” the Goertzel’s (1962) define the characteristics of creative thinking with four reasonable and applicable attributes. These distinctions are 1) The thinking is unconventional, 2) the product has value and novelty for the culture or the thinker, 3) It is of great intensity (highly motivated and also persistent) and 4) Part of the task is to formulate the problem itself where none before existed (Goertzel & Goertzel, 1962). Also, throughout history it has been those with creative geniuses that have propelled us forward in political and scientific advancements, and innovations.
The History & Psychology of Creative Genius
Throughout history creativity had been deemed supernatural and mysterious. Then the arrival of humanism, during the Renaissance, brought with it the concept of inherited genius, followed by psychological and contextual influences. Because exceptionally creative people, also referred to as creative genius, were unusual and misunderstood, the observations lead to suggestions that psychological processes were comparable to those of madness (Pavitra, Chandrashekar & Choudhry, 2007). Research suggests that there is a common thread between creativity and psychopathology, which includes but is not limited to unusual and/or regressed thinking processes, behavioral characteristics, and affective symptoms. From common mental illnesses to gene similarities to even comparable cultural influences and environmental impacts, genius seems to come at a very high price (Rey, 2002). History preserves that several different psychosis and genius have together touched some of the greatest minds of all time. It is important to keep in mind that when it comes to historical figures, there is no sound evidence of these findings. We essentially go by the biographies and/or literary writings by friends and family, showcasing the introspection that these individuals expressed. For example, the great poet, Anne Sexton (1928-1974), started writing poetry as an assignment given her by her analyst for in between their sessions. She wrote, “I, myself, alternate between hiding behind my own hands, protecting myself anyway possible, and this other, this seeing ouching other. I guess I mean that creative people must not avoid the pain that they get dealt…. Hurt must be examined like a plague” (Mehta, 2011).
Genius does not discriminate. Nor does mental illness as is evidenced in the touched philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, artists, writers, composers, and more that form this elite and intriguing society. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) suffered from severe depression and yet he still led this country through one it’s most stressful times. The great composer, Ludwig Von Beethoven (1770-1827) was said to have suffered bipolar disorder (Benjamin, 2012). Michelangelo (1475-1564) was an Italian sculptor and painter probably best known for his painting of the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel is believed to have met the criteria for Asperger’s disorder, a high functioning autism (Arshad & Fitzgerald, 2004). Charles Dickens (1812-1870) probably the most famous author of his time (“A Tale of Two Cities” (1859) and “A Christmas Carol” (1843)) was said to vacillate between mania and depression as part of his writing process. Best known for his contributions to the science of evolution, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was said to have suffered from many physical and psychological impairments such as visual hallucinations, hysterical crying, to name a couple that are said to have been the side effects of his severe agoraphobia. Winston Churchill (1874-1965) the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945) expressed feelings of being pressured by the “black dog of depression” and struggled with feelings of suicide. Churchill suffered from Bipolar disorder and his 43 published books are accredited to his high periods of mania when he would stay up all night writing (Benjamin, 2012). Another fascinating case is the many sufferings of the great scientist, Sir Issac Newton (1643-1727). From the various writings of historians, friends and his own hand, it is evident that Newton may have suffered from psychotic tendencies, bipolar disorder, delusions, autism, and even schizophrenia (Benjamin, 2012). And yet, in spite of his many psychological challenges and mental illnesses Newton is accredited with formulating the laws of motion, gravity and the theory of relativity. Newton is also recognized for building the first practical telescope and even the basis for calculus (Wikipedia, 2020). Inventor, innovator, and recipient of 112 patents during his lifetime, Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) suffered greatly with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (Szymanski, 2014). An interesting and somewhat perplexing diagnosis involves the famous Nobel Prize winning mathematician, John Nash (1928-2015). As of the age of 30 Nash had been in and out of hospitals for decades with what many referred to as schizophrenia. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), considered one of the greatest writers of all time, grappled with depression, bipolar disorder, and alcohol and drug abuse (the latter of which is said to have led to his death). Of Poe’s published masterpieces some actually speak of and/or reference his struggles with various mental illnesses (Wikipedia, 2020). As we have gathered, there seems to be a very fine line between highly and exceptionally creative individuals and mental illness and there is also so much more to explore.
The Clinical Side of Creativity
Learning about these incredible anomalies, poses the question, “What else do highly creative individuals with mental illness have in common?” The first theory to examine is the possibility that comorbid conditions tend to occur frequently in these cases. Which poses more questions, “Are people prone to mental illness drawn to the arts or music or innovation because they seek a reprieve from their own psyche? Studies have shown that you can be creative and not have mental illness but to what degree are normal people really creative? Can they be compared to the highest-ranking creative geniuses we have been referring to? Researchers and scientists are curious so hopefully more progress into the depths of these phenomena will produce sound results.
In the meantime, Stanford researchers, Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, MD conducted a groundbreaking study using personality and temperament tests that produced interesting findings. For one they found that healthy artists had more in common with individuals with manic depression than with healthy individuals. This study is significant because the separate control groups comprised healthy, creative people and people for the general population. The standard personality, temperament and creativity tests were administered to 47 individuals in the healthy group, 48 patients that had been successfully treated for bipolar disorder and 25 patients that had been successfully treated for depression. A healthy creative control group comprised of 32 people was also tested. Preliminary findings showed that participants in the control groups along with the group of recovered manic-depressives were more open and also displayed negative affectivity (personality variables that include poor self-image and negative emotions) than the participants in the healthy control group. The most common were neuroticism and moodiness (Rey, 2002).
Ruth Karpenski and her colleagues at Pitzer College conducted a profound study that involved the members of the high IQ society, Mensa (Marquardt & Hambrick, 2019). Founded in 1946, Mensa is a membership only forum available to those special individuals who have IQ’s that rank in the top 2% of the entire population. They currently have more than 140,000 Mensans in 100 countries (Berrill & Ware, 2020). Karpenski and her colleagues emailed a survey with questions relating to psychological and physiological disorders and requested that the respondents disclose if they had ever experienced and/or been clinically diagnosed with any of the disorders. The contents of the survey were inclusive of anxiety disorders (generalized, social and obsessive-compulsive), mood disorders (depression, dysthymia and bipolar), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism. The survey also included inquiries into autoimmune disorders, environmental allergies and asthma. They then (Karpinski and her colleagues) compared the 3,715 respondents who reported each disorder to the national average. The findings showed that the largest differences between the general population and the Mensa members were evident in mood and anxiety disorders. It showed that the cases were much higher than the national average, with about 26.7 percent of the sample reporting that they had been diagnosed with a mood disorder and 20 percent reporting anxiety disorders. It is interesting to note that prevalence of environmental allergies was tripe the nation average (Marquardt & Hambrick, 2019). Following the concept of “overexcitabilites” (OE’s) introduced by the Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski, Karpinski and her colleagues proposed the “hyper brain/hyper body theory” whereas psychological OE’s include an increased proclivity toward worry and physiological OE’s is the body’s response to stress (Marquardt & Hambrick, 2019). Excessive worry, stress, and anxiety can be caused by many factors and to different degrees. It is the exceptional inability to cope with them that produce different variable of mental illness.
Nature Vs. Nurture
Some interesting findings are the similarities in cultural contexts and environmental influences in individuals that are highly creative and who also experience comorbidities of mental illnesses. For example, another common attribute amongst some of the greatest minds of all time are that they were orphaned at a young age. Members of this group include but are not limited to, Confucius, Aristotle, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad, Mary, Queen of Scots, John Hancock, Malcolm X, Eleanor Roosevelt, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Babe Ruth, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs and to many more to name here (Anderson, 2019). There is also the question of heredity and genetic predisposition and the frequency of first-degree relatives sharing the same mental illnesses and/or creative genius. Regardless of where it comes from, the creative geniuses who are also burdened with mental illness are individuals with specific traits that differ from the norm.
A Perplexing Disposition
An individual’s disposition is defined as the inherent qualities of mind and character (Dictionary, 2020). These qualities are formulated by influence, experience, environment and culture. These factors act as roadmaps and play a significant part in our personalities. To break this down even further we can divide our expressions into two groupings and these groupings can be said to make up our human nature. The first would be evolutionary pressures on the individual and are expressed as self-serving calculations, aloofness, inner directness and selfishness. The second group is the evolutionary pressures on the social features of human involvement like sociability, empathy, cooperation, loyalty, mutuality, and connectedness. Normally occurring traits portray a sense of flexibility and resiliency for ones community as a whole, regardless of advantage or disadvantage to the individual. Consequently the traits tend not to be distributed evenly but materialize as clusters stemming from one part or the other of our human nature, as referenced for instance in Cal Jung’s “Psychological Types” (1923) as introverts and extraverts (Pediaditakis, 2014). How does this fair for in finding a correlation between creative genius and mental illness?
Studies have shown that there is a major variation from the norm of the innate temperament in creative geniuses. There seems to be an extreme variant that is seen in some individuals at risk for major mental disorders. Furthermore, clinical empirical evidence suggests that extreme variants originate largely by evolutionary pressures and seem to be common in geniuses and other types of vulnerable people. The 3 conditions that tend to develop most frequently are bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. These conditions can shift from one to the other and/or overlap each other and could be the reasoning behind the high suicide rate that is attributed to comorbidity (Pediaditakis, 2014).
Having had a first hand account of what genius looks like on the inside gave me a profound respect for the intelligence, creativity and the excruciating mental anguish to which these gifted individuals are prisoner. My birth mother skipped grades in high school, would lead the class if the teacher had to step out and she even got offered to skip her masters degree and go straight for her doctorate by Columbia University. She loved to paint and went through a faze of making sculptures. She studied psychology and cobalt and read astrology books with symbols only. Nothing could keep her attention and she was always moving on to the next thing. She was also socially inept, neglected me as a child, and would lock herself in her room for days and sometimes weeks at a time. She was misunderstood and didn’t know how to communicate. She was a tortured and lonely soul who in the end chose to let cancer eat her alive instead of getting chemo. Looking back on it now it is clear that she suffered from severe depression, possibly manic depression and who knows what else. She lacked empathy and connectedness and was self-centered and aloof. Another interesting trait that did not make sense back then is that she always thought my sister and I were ganging up on her or out to get her in some way. Makes sense now that she quite possibly also suffered from a version of schizophrenia and paranoia. And were she alive today I may have been able to learn so much more about what she went through.
While there is still much to be learned about creative genius, mental illness and the fine line between them, one thing is clear – the mental illness price tag placed on creative genius is a really high price to pay.
References:
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