|  | Mental Health | Bipolar Disorder

Creativity and Bipolar Disorder

Twenty or more studies have shown a link between bipolar disorder and higher levels of creativity, says Kay Redfield Jamison, author of "An Unquiet Mind." Hypo-mania, a state where an individual with bipolar disorder has increased energy and productivity, is obviously conducive to getting things done, whether creative or not. Yet, even in manic or depressed states, higher levels of creativity can be seen in these individuals.

  1. Famous Examples

    • Many creative people, both historical and contemporary, have been afflicted with bipolar disorder. Beethoven, Charles Dickens, Sylvia Plath and Lord Byron were considered to have the disorder. In contemporary times, actor Richard Dreyfuss has spoken openly about his bipolar condition and the treatment he underwent.

    Theories

    • A correlation might exist between bipolar disorder and a type of ruminative personality because the reflective mindset spirals into depression, according to researcher Paul Verhaeghan of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of Claremont Graduate School says that the link between bipolar disorder and creativity might be due to the hypersensitivity of the artistic personality.

    Parental Link

    • A Stanford University study found that bipolar or ADHD children and their bipolar parents scored higher in a test measuring creativity, the BWAS test, than normal control subjects. The Barron-Welsh Art Scale measures responses to various images compared to the responses of known artists. According to the 2005 article in the Journal of Psychiatric Research by Diana I. Simeonova and colleagues, past studies of creative parents with affective disorders and their children showed similar results.

    Controversy

    • Researchers, as well as people with mood disorders, do not all agree on whether bipolar disorder promotes or inhibits creativity. The Stanford study found that the longer children suffered with bipolar disorder, the less creative they became. Researchers attributed this to the effects of symptoms on performance. They also noted that 95 percent of the bipolar children were on psychotropic medications which may have accounted for the losses in creativity. However, actress Linda Hamilton, who has had bipolar disorder for years, stresses that her treatment has not inhibited her creativity as an artist, according to ABC News.

    Warning

    • Bipolar disorder comes with serious emotional and behavioral problems. Creative people with bipolar disorder may face increased risk of suicide. It is important to be aware of the possibility because, as Stanford University professor of psychiatry and behavioral science Terrence Ketter noted in CNN, "just as heart disease sometimes presents itself for the first time as a fatal heart attack, mental illness sometimes presents itself for the first time as a suicide."

Bipolar Disorder - Related Articles