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Manic-Depression Related to Creativity
"By passion [the artist] enters into life more than other men. That is his gift-- the power to live...Emotion is the condition of their existence; passion is the element of their being"
George E. Woodberry
Though there is no neurochemical evidence of bipolar disorder affecting creativity, the percentage of bipolar disorder cases rises dramatically among those we label creative geniuses. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, Schumann, Tsaichovsky, Michaelangelo, Jackson Pollack, Edgar Allen Poe, van Gogh, and Handel all used their gift of manic depression to benefit their work.
The most widely accepted and written about aspect of the relationship between mood disorders and creativity comes from learning through intense and deep emotional experiences and using that learning to add meaning and depth to creative work . The essence of creativity is defined as the capacity to regress to earlier, more primitive levels in mental hierarchy without losing contact with the surface world, reality.
Mood changes precede or follow creative thought. Evidence shows that expansiveness of thought and grandiosity of mood is common in mild hypomania. It results in an increase in fluency and frequency of ideas highly conducive to achievement. Bipolar disorder offers to its patients fluency in thought, according to Kraepelin. Manic patients experience increased speed and quantity of thoughts; thus there is more chance at producing unique ideas and associations. Fluency of thought includes word fluency, associational fluency, expressional and ideational fluency. Manic-depressive patients differ in their cognitive processing. They employ "divergent" thinking, where various answers will work so more exploration is done. A non-bipolar person will try to find one right answer, thinking "convergently".
Hyperacusis is one of the characteristics of the state of mania or hypomania. Senses are heightened, such as sight, hearing, touch and smell, and hyperacusis is thought to foster creativity. Another reason for creative stimulation is the importance of great emotional display or depth to creative people. They feel a greater capacity for feeling, for emotional reaction.
The recurrent, cyclic, contrasting nature of manic-depressive illness also encourages creative process. Noncognitive qualities of manic-depressive illness include the lack of need for sleep and the high energy level that is an integral part of hypomania states. The depressive state is analogous to hibernation or metabolic slowdown of the creative processes in the brain of artists. It provides the opportunity for incubation of ideas, until the next manic phase, while continuing exposure to contrasting states.
The intense awareness of joys and sorrows and powerful contrasts between extremes in mood and vitality are a benefit to creativity, and the essence of the illness. The "mental tools" given to the artist is taken from the depths and heights of emotional experiences associated with manic-depressive illness.
"By passion [the artist] enters into life more than other men. That is his gift-- the power to live...Emotion is the condition of their existence; passion is the element of their being"
George E. Woodberry
Though there is no neurochemical evidence of bipolar disorder affecting creativity, the percentage of bipolar disorder cases rises dramatically among those we label creative geniuses. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, Schumann, Tsaichovsky, Michaelangelo, Jackson Pollack, Edgar Allen Poe, van Gogh, and Handel all used their gift of manic depression to benefit their work.
The most widely accepted and written about aspect of the relationship between mood disorders and creativity comes from learning through intense and deep emotional experiences and using that learning to add meaning and depth to creative work . The essence of creativity is defined as the capacity to regress to earlier, more primitive levels in mental hierarchy without losing contact with the surface world, reality.
Mood changes precede or follow creative thought. Evidence shows that expansiveness of thought and grandiosity of mood is common in mild hypomania. It results in an increase in fluency and frequency of ideas highly conducive to achievement. Bipolar disorder offers to its patients fluency in thought, according to Kraepelin. Manic patients experience increased speed and quantity of thoughts; thus there is more chance at producing unique ideas and associations. Fluency of thought includes word fluency, associational fluency, expressional and ideational fluency. Manic-depressive patients differ in their cognitive processing. They employ "divergent" thinking, where various answers will work so more exploration is done. A non-bipolar person will try to find one right answer, thinking "convergently".
Hyperacusis is one of the characteristics of the state of mania or hypomania. Senses are heightened, such as sight, hearing, touch and smell, and hyperacusis is thought to foster creativity. Another reason for creative stimulation is the importance of great emotional display or depth to creative people. They feel a greater capacity for feeling, for emotional reaction.
The recurrent, cyclic, contrasting nature of manic-depressive illness also encourages creative process. Noncognitive qualities of manic-depressive illness include the lack of need for sleep and the high energy level that is an integral part of hypomania states. The depressive state is analogous to hibernation or metabolic slowdown of the creative processes in the brain of artists. It provides the opportunity for incubation of ideas, until the next manic phase, while continuing exposure to contrasting states.
The intense awareness of joys and sorrows and powerful contrasts between extremes in mood and vitality are a benefit to creativity, and the essence of the illness. The "mental tools" given to the artist is taken from the depths and heights of emotional experiences associated with manic-depressive illness.
