HOME BUDDHISM ART PSYCHE RANTS MISC CONTACT
- Depression
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Mental Illness and Creativity

Creativity and mental illness

Being creative person who suffers from depression I have become quite interested in the link between mental illness and creativity. It seems a truism that there isn't much separating genius from madness, but there does actually seem to be link...

ARE CREATIVITY and MENTAL ILLNESS LINKED? Resources by Steven Thow another list which has overlaps with this one.
Are Creativity and Mental Illness Linked? originally printed in the December 1996 issue of Today's Science On File
 
Bibliography for Famous People of the Past Who Had Depression or Manic Depression
Creative Process & Depression: from the Minneago Belladonna Journal #5 issue of strange affliction.
 
Creative Tension: A Crucial Component of Creativity in the Workplace by Lori Reisenbichler for The Center for the Study of Work Teams. Briefly looks at the relationship of creativity and mental illness.
Creativity and Depression and Manic-depression : Studies of Writers and Artists. Primarily aims at selling the book "Touched by Fire" but some interesting vignettes of famous depressed people.
Creativity and Mental Illness: Is There a Link? - Can J Psychiatry, Vol 43, March 1998.
Creativity and the Troubled Mind by Constance Holden Reprinted from Psychology Today, April, 1987.
Creativity, Depression and Suicide - The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Creativity, Evolution and Mental Illnesses. Journal of Memetics, Issue 2 - Dec 1997
Creativity's melancholy canvas from Science News.
 
Depression, Women and Creativity - Self-help and psychology magazine article
 
Famous (Living) People Who Have Experienced Depression or Manic Depression
Famous People with Bipolar Disorders
 
The gift of Saturn : creativity and psycopathology ANTONIO PRETI, MD
 
Highly creative people more likely to have severe psychiatric disorders - The Royal College of Psychiatrists press release - Friday 2 July 1999.
 
The Influence of Depression on Creativity in Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky - essay by Stanford student in Writing and Critical Thinking course.
 
Madness and creativity - Science, 266:1483, 1994
Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity by Kay Redfield Jamison author of Touched by Fire. Appeared in Scientific American Feb 95.
Misdiagnosis of the Gifted published in Mensa Bulletin, November 1994
Moods and the muse The Best of SCIENCE NEWS, June 17, 1995.
 
Of madness and creative genius ABIGAIL TRAFFORD reflects on van Gogh's painting and pain. Business Times Singapore Online.
Overview of Clinical Depression. David Joffe 1998 - from abstract... The hypothetical link between creativity and depression is discussed (actually pretty brief discussion).
 
Studies In Madness : The Role of Cognitive Style in the Effects Of Mental Illness On The Creative Genius of Jazz Pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell by Martin Margulis, Ph.D.
 
Van Gogh, Prozac and Creativity: A Mere Pigment of the Imagination? from "The Stress Doc" - site includes readers replies to his essay.
Virginia Woolf's Psyciatric History
 
The Warped Muse by John McManamy, journalist and writer.
The Write Brain - Mental Health InfoSource Online journal - original literature, personal stories and art from 'patients'.
The Writer and Depression Elizabeth Moon a science fiction writer.
Writers and Depression - Nancy Etchemendy. Speculations: For Writers Who Want To Be Read
Writers and Mental Illness
 
Yellow Brick Road Welcome to my bipolar and creativity page, Holly.

Book reviews on Creativity and Mental Illness

MANIC DEPRESSION AND CREATIVITY by D Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb MD (Prometheus Books, Amherst and New York, 216 pages.) 1