onifre
Member (Idle past 2977 days) Posts: 4854 From: Dark Side of the Moon Joined: 02-20-2008
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Left brained creativity
OK, what proportion of people "with creative talents" (how is this quantified?) have "reportedly experienced hypomania" Since this is off-topic I figured you'd check out the link, which answered this question.
quote:
Famous individuals with hypomanic symptoms
Hypomania appears to be found disproportionately in successful people, especially those in the arts.
List of people affected by bipolar disorder: This is a list of people accompanied by verifiable source citations associating them with bipolar disorder (formerly known as "manic depression"). This list includes only: a) deceased persons; and b) living persons who have been frank about their condition. It does not include speculation about status of living people who have not publicly stated themselves to have bipolar disorder.
Obviously, due to privacy, hard numbers are not going to be available. We can only go with those who have publicly stated it. The main point was in the symptoms, which, by understanding the symptoms, it should be easy to see the correlation between bipolar/hypomanic disorder and artists/creativity.
quote:
Symptoms:
Classic symptoms of hypomania include mild euphoria, a flood of ideas, endless energy, and a desire and drive for success. In the hypomanic state, people may feel that they cannot slow their minds down, and that their speeding thoughts are crafted exceptionally well. Some examples are speaking or writing in rhyme or alliteration without planning it first; quick responses to people talking; or the ability to improvise easily. People with hypomania are generally perceived as being energetic, euphoric, visionary, overflowing with new ideas, and sometimes over-confident and very charismatic, yet--unlike those with full-blown mania--are sufficiently capable of coherent thought and action to participate in everyday activities. A person in the state of hypomania might be immune to fear and doubt and have little social inhibition. People experiencing hypomania are often the "life of the party." Radiohead front man Thom Yorke reportedly responded, "Hypomania? Yes, that's exactly what it was," when asked about his mental state after the release of the group's album OK Computer. Iggy Pop was diagnosed with hypomania during his stay in a mental hospital in the mid-1970s. It has also been suggested that Richey Edwards, the "fatalistic Manic Street Preacher" (Mojo, 2003), and the late Syd Barrett of the band Pink Floyd have experienced hypomania. In the biographical documentary An Unreasonable Man, Ralph Nader is described as having hypomania.
Evidence Linking Mania and Hypomania to Creativity: From link:
quote:
Many artist, musicians, and writers have been diagnosed with bipolar or some other affective disorder during or after life: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, George Fredrick Handel, Robert Schumann, Peter Tchaikovsky, Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Lord Byron, Emily Dickenson, John Keats, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Vincent van Gogh. Other famous people like Patty Duke, Kitty Dukakas, Ted Turner and Robin Williams are currently living with bipolar disorder.
-furthermore- Kreaplin (1921) hypothesized that mania might bring about changes in thought processes that would result in increased creativity of thinking; and his study suggest that mania can produce qualitative changes in thinking (ideas produced) (Weisberg, 1994).
Andreason (1970) completed the first study of mania and creativity using structured interview, matched control groups and strict diagnostic criteria. She found a high occurrence of mood disorder in the thirty creative writers she examined. Eighty percent had experienced at least one episode of major depression, mania or hypomania, and forty-three percent had a history of hypo manic or manic episodes. First degree relatives of the writers generally performed more creative work and often had mood disorders (Jamison, 1987, Fodor, 1999, Ghadirian et al., 2000). -furthermore- Richards and Kinney (1990) studied the relationship between mood disorder and creativity and found that fifty percent of bipolar groups experience greatest creativity when in mildly high mood states (Richards and Kinney, 1990).
Ludwig (1992) conducted an extensive biographical survey of 1,005 famous twentieth century artist, writers, and other professionals. Artist and writers experience and estimated three times the rate of psychosis, suicide attempts, mood disorders, and substance abuse than did comparably successful people in business, science, and public life. Poets were thirty times more likely to have had manic depressive illness than were their contemporaries and five times more likely to have taken their own life (Jamison, 1995).
Fodor (1998) found that students with high bipolar scores wrote about a peak performance obtained especially high Remote Associates Test scores in comparison with students in other conditions. The findings support the view that manic depressive inclination has a special benefit, namely higher creativity potential than what exist within the general population (Fodor, 1998).
Shapiro and Weisberg (1999) found the association between creativity and bipolar disorder is similar behavior symptoms . Scores were higher in those experiencing hypomania with no depression. Common behaviors found: cognitive abilities, lack of sleep, energy, impulsivity, bold attitudes, and depth of emotion (Shapiro and Weisberg, 1999).
And one more link, if you care to read it: Bipolar Disorder and the Creative Mind quote:
It is clear that being bipolar does not mean that one will necessarily be creative. It is also clear that being bipolar is not a requisite for genius. However, Hagop S. Akiskal found that 9-10 percent of those bipolar patients he studied with less severe symptoms were artists and writers. The mind of a left-brained genius could be more vulnerable to mood swings, which manifest similarly to normal bipolar symptoms. Therefore the symptoms would not exist in all geniuses but in many. The connections in the brain that cause this genius may be different from those who express right brained talents. This would explain why geniuses in other fields do not show the same symptoms. It would also keep the link between mania and creativity that Ludwig's argument does not. Left brained creativity could be a vulnerability factor to developing symptoms of bipolar disorder. Studies present a seemingly clear link between bipolar disorder and artistic creativity. This would account for the reason other individuals in creative fields, such as science, do not show the same results. Because talent is often focused, it is unlikely that a manic individual chooses art. Because not all bipolar minds are creative but many creative minds are bipolar, it seems likely that bipolar disorder generates vulnerability for bipolar symptoms. Because it is only a vulnerability factor, many people will not suffer from it while still having talent.
Not to drag this further off-topic, but from the above, you don't think there is enough evidence to suggest a correlation? - Oni
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 167 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-26-2010 11:03 AM | | Dr Adequate has not replied |
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