Rather than engaging in side wise discussion (by posting replies), I thought I will write another post. I thank Ajeesh for bringing up the most appropriate reference on the topic. There has been a paradigm shift in understanding the relationship between mental illness and creativity. Earlier most psychiatrists were of the opinion that schizophrenia and related conditions would be the underlying condition in creative people. The perceptual distortions and oddities made them think this way. Van Gogh is one such case in point. It was thought that he suffered from schizophrenia. This could also be due to the lack of proper diagnostic criteria and definitions for the major mental illnesses. The psychological theories dominant at that time may also contributed to this. I am speaking about the 19th century and first half of the 20th century.
Now all this have changed. Mental disorders are now diagnosed by fairly objective criteria and the age of impressionism in diagnosis is over. Most of the psychological theories have now receded to the realm of pseudo science (Thanks to Karl Popper et al and the behaviorists). Now there is fairly good consensus among psychiatrists that mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder is the most common condition found in creative writers and mass leaders. Alcoholism is another common diagnosis. Earnest Hemingway suffered from both. Tolstoy, Abraham Lincoln, Issac Newton etc suffered from depression. Winston Churchill, Beethoven etc suffered from Bipolar disorder. Our own Vaikom Muhamed Basheer also suffered from severe manic episodes with paranoid delusion.
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2 weeks ago
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Will you consider a person as normal who has left his home, wife and children, rejected all the pleasures of life, wandering from place to place and not eating properly etc… for the sake of an ideology? That’s what Buddha did. Today a person acting like this will be forced to a psychiatry ward and may well deserve a depot injection in the butt. A lot of great men like Vivekananda, Sree Narayana Guru, Shankaracharya, Ashoka etc.. did not act like other of men of their time. In a way, they were all ‘abnormal’. It is even possible to find a name for their problems from the current psychology theories. Someone can argue that they had derealisation problems or temporal lobe epilepsy, or they were depressed or psychotic. I personally know some of the well known writers in Kerala, it is my observation that these people have something special about their behavior. Once a famous poet in Malayalam told me that he can’t remember even a single line of his poems! I hope he was not lying. I like his poems and it express deep feelings of sadness and despair. Try to write poetry in a normal mood, you will find it impossible even if you are a well known poet. It is not a right thing to put someone’s names here but we all know the relationship of alcoholism and art. How can a normal mind write books like One hundred years of solitude, Anna Karenina or Siddhartha? Most of the Vincent van Gogh’s best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide. Sylvia Plath placed her head in the oven while the gas was turned on.
It is observed that artistic skills are associated with many disorders like autism, aspergers syndrome, frontotemporal dementia, bipolar disease, epilepsy, ADHD etc… The people with ADHD may score higher in a creativity test than normal people and creative individuals may be more hyperactive than the others. A small study, published in the November issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, compared creativity test scores of children of healthy parents with the scores of children of bipolar parents. Children with the bipolar parents - even those who were not bipolar themselves - scored higher than the healthy children. There is a statistically significant increased incidence of mental illness in both artists and scientists. The percentage is very high compared to the general population.
I am interested in two questions.
Do evolution or natural selection support mental illness?
Do we need any special care when we treat creative people with mental/brain disorders?
Thank you.
hi. Ajeesh and harish your posts on mood disorders and creativity was well taken. I read up on mood disorders so please don't waste your valuable time responding to my earlier query about mood disorders in another thread. What i notice as a layman, psychologically speaking, is that there is an incredible method to this madness, the creative effort, for example, a book ( or a scientific discovery, or painting, or whatever 'creative' as we call it ) has to be constructed, have a structure, whatever the contents, an overall coherence to the ultimate product even though it may appear incoherent if taken in bits, the capability for susutained and prolonged effort that a person shows in his work, a person taking care of his bodily needs in all ways during all this time ( otherwise he wouldnt be able to complete it ), his partaking of the fruits of his labour either in cash or kind or both doesnt it seem that there is a lot more normal and well in these people than of the abnormal and unwell, mentally speaking. We may not be guided by often repeated exceptions to prove a rule, i think. I notice that alcoholism, and presumably other substance use has a large presence in the study quoted by ajeesh. We are not yet privy to the knowledge whether the writers developed the symptoms after they started writing or whether they exhibited it before they became famous, the temporal association. Whether their parents or peers noticed something different in these people before they became famous. Is our criteria wrong and are we classifying simple superior intelligence, commitment, sensitivity, capacity for concentration and hard work, a passion for enjoying the senses, a natural curiosity carried to great extents by the above qualities, a natural disappointment at not attaining the desired, all these as mental illnesses ?! Are we missing the wood for the trees ? Would we be better off attending and helping the really needy instead of the creatives who it seems on available evidence are very largely able to look after themselves, with very few exceptions maybe ? I think creativity and insanity may be linked, but doesnt seem to be a neccessary precondition, luckily, in most cases. I am sure if Mahatma Gandhi was alive today and carrying on in the same manner as he did, and based on his own confessions,he wiould have definitely qualified for DSM 4 bipolar disorder 1 and 2 at some time or the other ! Thank you
What happens if an animal get a structural or chemical imbalance in the brain? Do they exhibit any ‘instinct disorders’ or abnormality? Is there any kind of primitive forms of creativity observed in any animals?
A few years ago we had two pet dogs at home. Later one of them developed seizures. It used to fall down and gets attacks of fits. After some time he was unable to find his way around and could not recognize us even. One day it walked out of the house through the open gate. We called him back, but he was oblivious of anything. I discussed about this with some vets, but couldnt get a proper diagnosis. They did not favor the idea of treating him as well. I think he suffered from some brain disorder, which resulted in seizures and intellectual impairment.
Apart from this anecdotal episode, I have no knowledge of veterinary neurology (I think there is no veterinary psychiatry)
hi, like harish had, we have two dogs, both appeared equally normal at young age, both are of the same breed. They showed different levels of aggressiveness, liking for particular foods, playfulness etc. They havent shown any signs of creativity yet, but it is quite possible that prolonged association with me might rectify that deficiency !! I think that any exhibition of discordant behaviour in an animal will be invariably visited by ostracisation or a swift death at the hands of its compatriots, so creativity must be a phenomena expressed by the cortex in humans. Or atleast policed by the cortex in its expression even if it arises elsewhere, in a socially compatible way. Animals probably lack sufficient cortex to attenuate that creativity,to the socially acceptable level if it develops. Thank you
James Joyce wrote "Portrait of an aritst as a young man'. Somebody else (is it dylan Thomas - yes it is Dylan only. I confirmed by a net search. Isn't my memry still good !)wrote "Portrait of an artist as a young dog". This much I know of dogs and creativity. I dont know whether canines are creative or not. If they are how will they express it ? Can they bark with a new harmony ? Ha ha ha !! Thank you Ajeesh for giving something in a lighter vein !
From the foregoing comments it can be surmised that animals have unique personalities like us. But they may not have creative abilities like us. The fundamental difference is our ability for abstract thought and self awareness, conferred by the enormous development of our brains (especially our frontal lobe - which lie behing your forehead bones). This and the evolution form walking on all fours to the present biped gait were crucial milestones in our evolution. Charles Darwin himself studied the communication between animals and concluded that they are able to communicate only about their emotional states. The deer wlks very close to a calm and resting lion, but it can realize if the lion is hungry and in a ferocious mood form a distance and aviod it. The evlutionary advantage of all this is obvious. But neither the deer nor the lion can think abstractly about this or narrate these events to his friend or family. We do this easliy as we have evloved a system of using symbols (sounds or words) to represent reality. Language is a second signalling system which uses such predetermined symbols and certain rules on combining such symbols. This gives us the ability to manipulate external reality within our mind and solve problems or take decisions or communicate about our thoughts and feelings to others. This is the capacity for abstract thinking. Without this ability animals cannot be creative thinkers. We owe our rich mental life to our ability to use language.
dogs can be creative. It can chew meat in particular designs, it can do sculptures on a leather background like shoes. Sometimes it prefers a more synthetic media like doormats. Availability rather than aesthetic preference seems to be the main criteria. Why only dogs. Even cows can be creative. I once heard of a cow that did a most creative thing. It kicked its master and broke his bnne. The guy was unduly philosophical for some time after that. So animals, while not always brimming with creativity, can induce it on specific occasions. Maybe ajeesh meant that and we didnt understand it properly hahaha !
I forgot to answer the 2 questions raised by Ajeesh. The second question first. Yes I think the therapist has to have extra skills to handle a creative artist. Lithium salts are used to treat bipolar disorder. But very often, creative people refuse to take this as they feel it hinders their creativity. 'Lithium puts a brake on my creativity' said one. Another issue is the tempestuous nature of interpersonal relationships. They tend to idealize you when they like you, but you become a beast once you stop conceding to their demands. This pattern is observed in most of their interpersonal relationships including doctoer - patient relationship. Their emotional instability and impulsiveness also are major difficulties. But one can also have several good experiences and revealing insights because basically most of them have good intelligence and ability to empathize. The first question on the evolutionary advantage of mental illnesses merits detailed discussion.
I am busy and away from office, hope to join you next week.
Thank you.
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