Mental Illness and Creativity

Hi All,

This debate was interesting in that both sides did a fantastic job advocating for their view points! However, I wish the debate topic should have been qualified with a specific disease such as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, or seasonal affective disorder. This would have provided the audience with more details and would have focused the debate more.

Questions I had entering the debate: What kind of disorders? What were the mechanisms underlying this decrease in creativity? For the later I could imagine a disease such as depression which may inhibit creativity due to compulsive thoughts occupying a patients mind. Also, I could also see a scenario where depression may predispose a person to be isolated, which would allow them more alone time to potentially think creatively.

So I have come o the conclusion that a mental illness effects on creativity is dependent on how the illness effects the individual! This would explain some of the discrepancies the debaters had between themselves and why some mental diseases promote creativity, while others do not. There may be in fact more variability to this question than previously thought!

Also a question that interest me is what neuroscience is involved in these illnesses that may enhance creativity? For instance, the debaters pointed out that many artist tend to be in a depressed state during the genesis of their best work. How can this be? Perhaps the inhibition of certain neural networks which regulate the "creative" networks result in the expression of greater creative prowess. Or maybe the induction of depression up regulate neural tracts responsible for the feelings of depression, yet the same tract being unregulated increases creativity. Or for a third option, maybe being depressed changes your interpretation of the world, so that you see experiences differently in comparison to non-disease states and therefore produce different creative products.

Regardless, this was a great debate which got me thinking! Please comment on your thoughts and impressions. I will post once more before the end of the semester.

Until my next post.

Ryan