Is there a relationship between being creative and developing a mental disorder?
Today we read an excellent article on psicopedia.org. In it, the relationship between creative minds and their vulnerability to bipolar disorders is highlighted. “People at a higher risk of developing bipolar disorder consistently report stronger experiences of inspiration.”
The document titled Development and validation of a new multidimensional measure of Inspiration: Associations with the risk of bipolar disorder found a specific relationship between those who find their source of inspiration within themselves and the risk of bipolar disorder.
According to Professor Jones, co-director of the research at Lancaster University: “It seems that the types of inspiration most related to bipolar vulnerability are self-generated and are linked to a strong drive for success.”
This is not the first time both concepts have appeared related. A month ago, on the investigacionyciencia.es blog, they published the results of a study conducted by Kyaga and his team from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm (Sweden), in which they studied Swedish subjects treated for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression between 1973 and 2003.
“Their objective was to analyze whether psychiatric cases were more likely to have a creative profession. Creative professions included: visual artists (photographers, designers, etc.), non-visual artists (musicians, actors, writers), and academics (university professors).
Finally, they also looked at the records of the patients’ relatives. In this way, they also wanted to know what their jobs were and if they fell into the category of creative professions.
The results showed that having bipolar disorder or being a close relative of someone with bipolar disorder was correlated with having a creative job. For schizophrenia, the scenario was more complex. Being schizophrenic was not correlated with being creative in itself; however, being related to someone with schizophrenia was. For depression (unipolar depression, that is), there was no type of correlation.”
