Vincent van Gogh in an 1887 self portrait.
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Vincent van Gogh sliced off his ear with a knife during a psychotic episode. Ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky developed schizophrenia and spent the last 30 years of his life in hospital. Virginia Woolf lived with bipolar disorder, eventually taking her own life as she felt another deep depression beginning.
Many famous creative artists have lived with severe mental illness. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mariah Carey, Demi Lovato, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mel Gibson have all reported diagnoses of bipolar disorder. Yayoi Kusama, Sylvia Plath, Kurt Cobain and Syd Barrett spoke about experiences of psychosis. Speculation abounds about whether Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe and Ernest Hemingway lived with borderline personality disorder.
The concept of the “mad creative genius” harks back to antiquity. Artists in the Renaissance and Romantic periods would sometimes assume eccentric personalities to distinguish themselves as extraordinary individuals who had made Faustian bargains for their talents.
Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter, described his “sufferings” as “part of myself and my art … their destruction would destroy my art.” Poet Edith Sitwell, who experienced depression, reportedly used to lie in an open coffin to inspire her poetry.
In 1995, a study of 1,005 biographies written between 1960 and 1990 even proposed that people in the creative professions had a higher rate of severe psychopathology than the general population.
So how does this square with the fact that artistic expression is beneficial for our mental health? As I explain in my new book Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health, there is a wealth of scientific evidence on these benefits.
However, the reality for professional artists can be a bit different. While they tend to report enhanced overall wellbeing, the life of an artist can be psychologically challenging. They have to endure everything from precarious careers to professional competition.
Kurt Cobain’s mental health deteriorated after he became famous.
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Additionally, fame brings stress, challenging lifestyles, an increased risk of substance abuse, and an inevitable but unhealthy focus on oneself. In a 1997 study, scientists analysed the number of first-personal pronouns – I, me, my, mine and myself – in songs by Cobain and Cole Porter (who himself had bouts of severe depression). As their fame increased, both saw a statistically significant increase in their use of these pronouns.
But what about artists who developed mental illness before becoming famous, or even before becoming artists? Genetics research has uncovered some shared genes that may underlie severe mental illness and creativity.
A variation in the gene NRG1 is associated with both increased risk of psychosis and higher scores on questionnaires that measure people’s creative thinking. Variations in dopamine-receptor genes have been linked with both psychosis and various creative processes like novelty seeking and decreased inhibitions. It’s a mixed bag of findings, however – not all studies show such links.
Beyond genetics, there are also some personality traits that can be common both to mental illness and creativity, including openness to experience, novelty-seeking and sensitivity. It’s possible to see how such research could provide a lens for viewing artists like Van Gogh, Nijinsky and Woolf.
Yet creativity and mental health difficulties can act against one another. For instance, Woolf described her depressive episodes of bipolar disorder as a well: “Down there, I can’t write or read.” So while some people with severe mental illnesses may make art, not everyone can all the time.
What’s more, when we look for signs of a link between severe mental illness and creative pursuits at a population level, the evidence isn’t clear-cut. In 2013, a Swedish study tracked over 40 years of data from 1.2 million people in national patient registers, including medical records of diagnoses, mental health treatments and cause of death.
The researchers found that people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, anxiety disorders and unipolar depression were actually less likely than the average person to be in creative professions. The only slight exception was bipolar disorder, where people had around 8% higher odds of being in a creative profession.
But this study also found something arguably more intriguing: the parents and siblings of people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder were more likely to be in creative professions. It’s not hard to think of examples amongst famous artists: James Joyce’s daughter and David Bowie’s half-brother both had schizophrenia. Why might this pattern exist?
People who are genetically susceptible to severe mental illness but don’t develop the full conditions may instead have milder versions. Minor hypomania, for instance, involves elevated moods but not with the intensity of bipolar disorder. Schizotypy involves divergent thinking and heightened emotion without the severity of schizophrenia.
These conditions have been associated with creative processes like reduced inhibitions, defocused attention and neural hyperconnectivity (the ability to make cross-sensory associations like hearing colours or tasting musical notes).
Perhaps the siblings and parents of people with mental illness tend to be more likely to have such conditions, and this explains why they choose creative professions. Having said that, not all creative people work in a creative profession – for many, creative hobbies are their outlet away from work.
Essentially, the science suggests there may be some shared processes between severe mental illness and creative processes like the arts. But it’s not the clear linkage that anecdotes might lead us to believe. The myth of the “mad creative genius” is overly simplistic. It also risks perpetuating stigma rather than understanding, so it’s perhaps better put to bed.
It seems more productive to focus on the value that creative engagement can bring to support our mental health. Whether people have a mental illness or are just dealing with day-to-day moods and emotions, there are more studies emerging every week that are building our understanding of the tangible, meaningful benefits the arts can have. This research is revealing how artists, clinicians and communities can work together to build safe, accessible, inclusive opportunities to enjoy the arts. The Conversation