Does mental illness cause creativity or does the association stem from an independent cause? A few researchers have proposed that there are more mentally ill people in the arts because the creative work is particularly stressful and drives artists over the edge. Other researchers have suggesteed that there are so many mentally ill people in the creative arts simply because it is difficult for them to hold other kinds of jobs. What accounting firm would hire someone like Byron, who kept a pet bear in his college rooms? (Byron did so in response to a Cambridge regulation specifying that he could not keep a dog.) What hospital would hire someone like Joseph Beys, who regularly wrapped himself in felt and rancid fat? (Beys explained his obsession with these substances as having started after a plane crash in the Crimea from which he was rescueed by Tartars, who rubbed him with fat and wrapped him with felt to heal and warm him. His story is most likely entirely false.)---Alice Flaherty, The Midnight Disease
(Note: I'm away in Italy until Aug. 21. Until then, I'll probably be posting very little to either of my blogs.)
Posted by nchicha at August 8, 2004 06:30 AMI think there are and have been many mentally ill people who dabble and make careers for themselves in the arts specifically because of their unique/unusal outlook on life. They use the arts to say this is what I see, this is what I feel.
People who have mental illness must find an outlet to express their view or experience in the physical world and/or a means to express the battle in their mind. For many I think it is by far a personal need to use it as an outlet more than as a means to entertain others. Creativity, can ease the pain of an inner struggle. I think some of the greatest artists throughout history are those who got lost in their work. Rather than fighting the insanity they would fan the flames of it, if only briefly, run with it and express it with words, paint camera; and a masterpiece is born. It is a blessing, tormented as it may be to be gifted. Just my humble opinion. :)
People I think are drawn to their work because it is different, shocking or they think genius, so the audience responds strongly, and fame for the artist is born. Take Artaud for example, his writing is compelling and fascinating to many exactly because of the strangeness. In his personal writings he talks much of his inner struggles, and these struggles come through in his public works. I think artist such as Artaud must create to make sense of their place in the world.
Posted by: tj on August 11, 2004 07:45 AMFor a small piece of this large and interesting question, check out Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis by Deborah Hayden. Deborah also has a blog, Poxblog.
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle on August 22, 2004 11:59 AMA few divergences ...
(1) Who has the stats on this? Do we know for a fact that "mentally ill" people are proportionately more likely to be in the arts, or is this an assumption? Is it just that the "mentally ill" are more vocal and expressive of their abnormalities, as is almost certainly the case with addiction? (i.e., There are probably more alcoholics and addicts working as brokers and traders than as artists and writers, but for addicts in the arts addiction and dissipation are much more public.)
(2) The chicken or the egg approach doesn't work here. Genetic patterns linked with various forms of mental illness are poorly understood, and genetic patterns of all kinds are connected in very subtle ways. A "butterfly effect" type thing would be a better model and metaphor. "Mental illness" can be a blessing and/or a curse, as can creativity. It simply depends on how we deal with our own existential position, "what we do" with "what we got."
Posted by: Jeffrey on August 27, 2004 03:12 PMJ'aime c'est site d'information, merci.
Posted by: Shann on December 7, 2004 11:18 PM