Myth or Madness? Mania and the Artistic Genius
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Biology 202
2001 Second Web Report
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Myth or Madness? Mania and the Artistic Genius
(A Book Review of
Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D.)
Diana C. Applegate
"And Something's odd - within -
That person that I was -
And this One - do not feel the same -
Could it be Madness - this?"
-Emily Dickinson
That person that I was -
And this One - do not feel the same -
Could it be Madness - this?"
-Emily Dickinson
Those of us who enjoy the arts, either as participants or avid fans of the creative process, are very much aware of the so-called "myth of the artist" and other similar stereotypical sketches that link the artistic genius to an inner, emotional world of tumultuous highs, lows, and sheer "madness". Mental illness, particularly manic depression, has somehow become an inseparable part of the successful artist's experience in the romanticized biographies of famous poets, painters, and musicians of our time. In her book, Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison lends some evidence to this widely-recognized cultural myth, and exposes a very convincing relationship between the mood cycles involved with manic depression and the creative process.
Jamison does not assume the reader has any clinical knowledge about manic-depressive illness. She starts from scratch, explaining the condition in traditional scientific terms, and also illuminates manic-depressive illness throughout the book by sharing the poetry and prose of those who lived with it. After thoroughly defining and describing the disease, Jamison presents biographical and scientific evidence suggesting a relationship between manic depression and artistic creativity. In her next chapter, she forges even further ahead, discussing the psychological and biological arguments in support of an overlap between madness and art. Before concluding with a chapter on the problems with, and objections to, the treatment of manic-depressive illness, as well as the ethical concerns surrounding the possible isolation of a gene or genes responsible for the disorder, Jamison devotes an entire chapter to George Gordon, Lord Byron, a famous poet who suffered from manic-depressive illness.
So what exactly is Jamison's evidence? Her biographical sources linking manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament include personal accounts such as letters and other autobiographical excerpts from the likes of Robert Lowell, Robert Burns, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Schumann, Theodore Roethke, Edgar Allen Poe, Vincent Van Gogh, Lord Byron, and others. In addition, Jamison occasionally analyses the work of these artists, which often describe, in detail, the emotional and intense highs and lows they experienced. The author's scientific discussion of manic-depressive illness allows the reader to recognize the similarities between the artists' accounts of their symptoms and the clinically accepted symptoms of manic depression that are used in diagnosis today. Furthermore, Jamison includes numerical figures which indicate that writers, in particular, have a vastly disproportionate rate of manic-depressive illness as compared to the general population.
Even more compelling is Jamison's discussion of moods as they relate to creative productivity: "Many of the changes in mood, thinking and perception that characterize the mildly manic states - restlessness, ebullience, expansiveness, irritability, grandiosity, quickened and more finely tuned senses, intensity of emotional experiences, diversity of thought, and rapidity of associational processes - are highly characteristic of creative thought as well." (105) She notes that two aspects of thinking, in particular, seem to show up in both creative and hypomanic thought: "fluency, rapidity, and flexibility of thought on the one hand, and the ability to combine ideas or categories of thought in order to form new and original connection on the other." (105)
Manic-depressive illness, of course, is a mood disorder, and those afflicted with the condition experience alarming variations in mood, ranging from energetic, euphoric highs to melancholy, listless lows. Some have suspected that the melancholic periods experienced by so many artists are key in determining why, if at all, they are possibly more attuned to the subtleties of human emotion and experience. However, Jamison argues that one must pay equally close attention to the manic phase of the disorder, and that, perhaps, it is even more crucial to understand and appreciate the interplay between these two interacting cyclic stages or phases of manic-depressive disorder and how they relate to one another when assessing how mood may affect creative output. For example, the birth of new ideas often takes place during the manic phases, but the refinement of such thoughts may occur during the artist's melancholic periods. The creative process requires a certain amount of emotional involvement as well as a more logical perspective in order to put the new ideas into practice. Jamison also relates creative productivity to the cyclic nature of the seasons and months of the year, mapping mood cycles on top of natural cycles with very interesting results.
What interested me in particular was Jamison's discussion of treating manic-depressive illness, and the resistance that artists may have to drug therapy. Those who experience such a range of highs and lows often become accustomed to them, and do not wish to give them up. Furthermore, if artists are more productive during a certain phase of the illness, they fear that medication will change that. And, in some cases, it does. Lithium, one of the more commonly prescribed drugs to regulate the manic's highs and lows, often has the effect of making the transition from one mood to the next a lot less pronounced. The stability that the drug offers to patients can make them feel almost lifeless in comparison to the dramatic mood swings experienced during manic-depressive illness. However, Jamison stresses that manic-depressive illness can end in suicide if not treated, and, of course, there are many creative and productive people in the world who do not experience the symptoms of manic depression. Therefore, it is still possible to create, even when undergoing drug treatment. Changes in productivity levels will vary from person to person.
Jamison's Touched With Fire is highly relevant to this course, and our continuing discussion of whether or not the brain really equals behavior. The author does not discuss manic-depressive illness in neurobiological terms. However, she draws a parallel between the behavioral characteristics of manic-depressive illness, and those experienced during the creative process. Earlier in the course, a few students objected to the brain=behavior idea by saying, "What about creativity?" Jamison's book does not provide us with any answers, but it raises several new and interesting questions. If the behavioral characteristics of the creative process are similar to those of a genetic, neurobiologically-related disorder, then it is conceivable that creativity arises from the interaction of certain neurons in the brain. Nevertheless, creativity is still very much a puzzle for neurobiologists and psychologists alike, and further study is needed in order to come to any definitive conclusions.
I recommend this book to artists and scientists alike, and appreciate the way that Jamison connects these two, often very separate, realms of study in an engaging manner. She presents an overwhelming amount of serious evidence in support of her hypothesis. I felt that the chapter focusing on Lord Byron was a little unnecessary and out-of-place, but his case study did reinforce many of her ideas regarding manic-depressive illness and the creative process, and also fit in with her discussion of the disease as genetically-based. Jamison focuses her investigation on famous artists perhaps because they are of interest to the general public, and their biographies have often already been written fairly well. However, she points out that it is difficult to diagnose retrospectively. I would be interested in finding out whether or not there have been similar studies done on less famous groups of artists, where success might be defined by awards they have won so far as opposed to a posthumously-created legacy.
Related WWW Links
1) A Brief Bio on Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison , on the Random House Reader's Club Website2) Live from Lincoln Center: Interview with Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison , on the Lincoln Center Backstage Website
3)"Research explains lithium's dual anti-manic/anti-depressive effect" , on the University of Wisconsin - Madison Website
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10/25/2005, from a Reader on the Web is sensitivity also part of this too? i have been considered a manic depressive since i was 12, but sent to doctors and psychologists and therapists etc, whom i flet didn't really understand the extent of what was 'wrong' with me. (i'm now nearly 30) i have grown to realise for myself that i have an extremely high sensitivity to all things. for example, i'm a musician whom also composes music, and i hear the actual note (perfect pitch) and 'feel' it in my gut. i also hear the notes of people if you can get what i mean, and have to hold my breathe whilst walking past certain strangers to try not to 'pick up' their frequencies because i get overwhelmed by their energy (normally not a pleasant energy). i can sense things like if someone has been cruel, if someone is capable of violent acts, also if someone has empathy etc. i'm sure being so sensitive a person is what originally led me to try to take my own life when i was 17, because i felt the agony of our world so intensly that i didn't think i could live with it. i must go now
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Additional comments made prior to 2007
I have been researching artistic temperament for a
couple years now. I have not read the above mentioned book..but feel I
am a candidate. I have been diagnosed with cyclothymia...and am
currently on prozac..and I hate it. It seems the more I get into my
art..the worse my condition seems to get, almost like it feeds on it. I
would most eagerly be involved in some sort of process that could help
me lead a more normal life with out the aid of medidation. This
condition seems to be ruining any chance of my being successful in
business ... Reader on the web, 3 September 2006
Creativity = mental illness...What?
I have seen so many articles of this confusion of creativity being a mental illness. And who said so. I will not for a second give this person reconciliation to claim that he was right to even say such things. Just because someone came up with this recognized behavior is mental illness( to mearly make a name ofr ones self is highly unacceptable. HOw come it is when there is some uniqueness in the accpeted mjority around us. This genocide thinking around us that theres only one type of person. And the rest thought to be wrong. These ways of today is coined by the ideas in our history as what it is to be moralistaclaly right and perfect. So why is it that the rest are amde to feel who they are is wrong. So they don't seem to fit in, into the unthinking world. They go around knowing they are different from the rest of the people who do not see, while you seem to see things differently or deeper. These peple won't hear you. They go on with thier superficial materialistic life around you. And they almost apear as systematic and robotic to you. They can't understand your emotions, your poetry, your paintings, your deep thirst for knowledge. And they claim you have gone mad or manic. Psychiatrist feeling important trying to make a name for themsleves seem to label and brand these people to ananlyze you. Because they placed themsles in these postions of control. Buy what they have accepted to be knowledge which is not really real knowledge at all. And then they seem to give you apill to convince you your thinking is wrong and its all in you and its this chemical emablnce because you passing enough or to littel dopamines.
These people usually obtain a greater understnading and knowledge because they see more. And the thing is. Those who see things more and more deeply. The reality is as they grow closer to the realiztion of things around them ..There is littel to be happy about. Psychiatrist believe that all things and prsblems and reactions to emtions exist onyl in the malfunction of the body within yourself. And t them this can be all corrected if people with this so called mental illness would take thier pills.
Thus killing and making what they call normal and destroying what Cod has designed. And killing your creative tool of the brain to use what makes you. You.
In a more mello conscience state. We receive knowledge and information. In a so called manic state of mind. It performs the action to express it. Which according to psychologist, "assertiveness" is one of those manic states. Basically these people where swoopeed into an accult of an agnostic doctrine to destory the evidence of the idea of life and God and the rleation to a maker.
Illiminating Creativity...on this note, clearly observed. They are the religeon of death. And they can't put together why the world is spirling into chaos.
What these people have labeled manic depressive/bipolor. Is natural design. Wich has different varification according to "their" unseeing mind. What that is.
These ideas came from religeous disputes and doctrines of idealist and a war over who is write, and the ignorance accepted by them. Lets tell you where this movement to stop creative people came from. The people with post modern(modernism) doctrines. And the refute agaisnt change and artists deemed to be witchcraft. And ignorance making judgement agaisnt people like from the reformation speaking agasint them because they claimerd t be deeper thinkers. and have the truth. Denying where that truth is. Its not the Geniuses that were the problem ..It was the wanna be one. Catholics promoting ..To deny your emotions and feelings though mortification ..then the war agaisnt that practice to stop it. The DSM has recording of people who claim they have a mission are emntally ill. Those who claim a relationship to a diety or God is delusional.eople who claimed to be persecuted. (usually those coming out of relgious socirites..Because they are ..Are just lablee and nevr listneed to as delusional or paranoid or other. Thus attameting to end all this by labotomy in pills. Ita lla I big war about beliefs and power. Today theri not allowed to kill those people. They just put them on pills and instituionalize them. In the act these victems will probaly be driven mad or lost and confused. And yet some will survive. Why do they want to die. Look at the world we live in. And people will continue to write about it. to create poetry and paint. They will mourn , be depressed, and express. They will be driven to suicide. Because who wantsd to be oppressed under the dead. Who refuse to accept life and knowledge. WHo refuses to listen, who stands there and lets you know everything that is expressed through your charachter has to be stopped and destroyed.
creative mood swings
I am an artist and singer and write poetry. Some of my darkest days was where I produced some of my personal best works.
Personally, I believe if one can control and accept that there will be dark days along with the good and just committ to hang on then there is no reason to take mood/mind altering drugs. If someone is trying to end themselves then they do need help, but before they are bombarded with altering drugs they should try to talk this out with a good therapist/counselor.
The major One who keeps me is The Lord, bottom line-period.
I've had MANY bad, depressive days, but I've learned to hang on and realize that without the winter one would never see the spring.
ADD/ADHD medicine-do they stifle creativity?
I am looking into the relationship between drugs such as Adderal used for ADD treatment, and their positive or negative affect on creativity...do you think that studies have been run looking at these issues? I know that some anti-depressants can have this effect, but what about these ADD/ADHD drugs. Does anyone know about this issue? thanks, mcg
ADD meds & creativity
My son was diagnosed with ADD and was put on Ridolin, before that he was extremely creative! Built and made all sorts of things, and above his age appropriate ability for sure. As I think back, all of his building and creativity did seem to stop when he was on the Ridolin, though the Ridolin did help him imensly with behaviour and marks in school.
I am an artist with anxiety and depression, though I am thinking I may be manic and am a little concerned that if I am put on meds for it that I may lose my creativity as well.
Creativity and ADD Meds
I don't know about any studies that have been run, but I doubt that any conclusive studies have been done. The problem is that most anti-depressants build up in your body so that someone on anti-depressants is on an effective dose all of the time. The medications used to treat ADD/ADHD last under eight hours effectively and follow a standard distribution curve. Personally as someone who has ADD and is bipolar I strongly suspect they do. All of that distractability, the rapid loosely connected thoughts, the decreased inhabitation in ideas can lead to intense creativity in the right circumstances. By the increased ability to focus on one thing at a time and decreased environmental reactiveness I am sure you lose some of that creative potential. You gain a great deal of ability to get things done though. And its creative potential not creativity so by being on meds you lose a lot of not very useful daydreaming and gain the ability to focus on what you want to focus on. Hopefully that was of help.
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