The 19th-century poet Lord Byron endured what he called "savage moods." From childhood on, he careened between periods of wretched despondency and fiery,  increasingly irrational urges and thoughts.

His volatile temperament frequently set off sparks of poetic imagination, inspiring him at one point to write of "the apostle of affliction, he who threw enchantment over passion, and from woe wrung overwhelming eloquence."

Byron expresses a widespread intuition that creativity and genius feed off mental turmoil. The ancient Greeks, for instance, believed in divine forms of madness that inspired mortals' extraordinary creative acts or performances. 

Modern scientists have conducted more than a dozen studies documenting a higher rate of mental disorders, particularly disturbances of mood such as depression and manic depression, in painters, poets, musicians, and novelists.

An editorial in the April American Journal of Psychiatry, written by psychiatrists Peter C. Whybrow of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Nancy C. Andreasen of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, cites this evidence as supporting an association between mood disorders and creativity.

Some researchers take this argument further, arguing that mood disorders sometimes enhance or otherwise add punch to creativity (Science News: 5/7/94, p.302). Yet they acknowledge that individuals who navigate relatively calm emotional waters can also wash onto the shores of artistic greatness.

Even with that caveat, the linking of mood disorders to innovative thinking relies on a view of creative eminence that exaggerates its tie to mental maladies, argues Arnold M. Ludwig, a psychiatrist at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington. 

New data indicate that emotional stability typifies innovative people in certain disciplines, such as architecture and the sciences, and occurs in a good many people in artistic fields as well, Ludwig asserts. 

Byronic sufferings engender creative breakthroughs only when accompanied by a particular suite of personal attributes and circumstances, he says. Ludwig describes this "template for greatness" in The Price of Greatness...

"Mental illness is not the price people pay for their creative gifts," the Kentucky psychiatrist holds. "While mental disturbances may provide individuals with an underlying sense of unease that seems necessary for sustained creative activity, these disturbances are not the only source for inner tension."

Ludwig derives his argument from a 10-year investigation in which he gathered extensive biographical information on 1,004 deceased men and women who had lived during the 20th century and gained prominence in the arts, the sciences, public office, the military, business, or social activism.

Ludwig developed a creative achievement scale to measure the relative eminence of each person in the sample. The scale contains 11 items, some of them carrying more weight than others. 

Key elements of eminence include recognition and reputation after death, worldwide appeal of creative works, the setting of new directions and demonstration of foresight in a field, influence over colleagues and the public, originality in creative efforts, and the extent of innovative accomplishments over a lifetime.

Ludwig avoided the temptation to diagnose specific psychiatric disorders from written accounts of people's lives. Instead, he used biographical information to classify certain broad categories of symptoms as "definite" or "probable." 

These included alcohol- and drug-related problems, depression, mania, incapacitating anxiety, bizarre delusions and other psychotic symptoms, bodily preoccupations, and suicide attempts.

About one-third of the eminent poets, musical performers, and fiction writers in Ludwig's study suffered from serious psychological symptoms of some kind as teenagers, a rate that ballooned to about three-quarters when they reached adulthood.

Teenagers destined for other arenas of creative achievement usually displayed good mental health. As adults, however, psychological disturbances affected one-half to two-thirds of eminent artists, composers, nonfiction writers, actors, directors, musical performers, social scientists, architects, and athletes.

Prominent natural scientists, politicians, explorers, soldiers, and business people had the lowest rates of adult mental conditions among those studied, ranging from one-quarter to one-third.

In particular, 46 to 77 percent of poets, fiction and nonfiction writers, painters, and composers encountered periods of serious depression, at least twice the rate observed in persons in other fields. 

Mania appeared most often in actors, poets, architects, and nonfiction writers, with lifetime rates ranging from 11 to 17 percent. The severe mood swings that make up manic depression afflict a little less than 1 percent of the general population.

Some professions draw out emotional turmoil, while others tamp it down, Ludwig contends. Fields that tolerate ambiguity and flexibility in creative expression, such as painting, poetry, and fiction writing, more readily accept practitioners with mental disorders and allow them to wrestle with their inner demons in their art. 

Fields that emphasize accumulated knowledge and structured means of exploration, such as science, attract and promote people with calmer temperaments.

As a case in point, Ludwig notes that 28 percent of eminent representatives of artistic fields in his study suffered from symptoms of serious psychological conditions -- often mania or excessive alcohol or drug use -- at the time their careers first took off. 

Although this finding implies that such disturbances benefited creativity, the same pattern characterized only3 percent of eminent scientists, whose lifetime creative accomplishments reached the same heights as those of the artistic group.

To discriminate among the ingredients blended into a life of creativity and innovation, Ludwig compared the 250 most eminent and 249 least eminent members of his sample. The "upper elite," essentially the superstars of their fields, consists of people such as painter Pablo Picasso, playwright Tennessee Williams, physicist Albert Einstein, and architect Le Corbusier.

The "lower elite," comprising champions and innovators who had less profound influences within and outside their fields, includes businessman J.P.Morgan, writer Dorothy Parker, baseball player Jackie Robinson, and philosopher-anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

More than half of the upper elite suffered from pronounced symptoms ofmental disorder, particularly depression, excessive alcohol use, extreme reactions to stress, and bodily preoccupations, compared to about one-third of the less eminent. 

However, a statistical model based solely on the length and severity of these symptoms during a person's lifetime correctly placed only 63 percent of people into the appropriate upper and lower elite groups, according to Ludwig.

A more elaborate model that incorporated eight personal characteristics accurately sorted out 92 percent of the creative superstars from the less eminent. The presence of these eight elements of eminence greatly boosts a person's chances of achieving lasting fame, Ludwig maintains, although poorly understood social and historical forces probably decide whether one's full creative potential is realized.

Truly great creative achievers, in Ludwig's model, usually
*display special talents or abilities as children;
* receive support for developing those qualities from parents, who often have creative or aesthetic bents as well as emotional difficulties of their own;
* harbor an ingrained contrariness and opposition to established beliefs, which frequently antagonizes other people;
* possess a capacity for solitude and self-reliance;
* face physical trials early in life, often a life-threatening illness or physical disability;
* emblazon their works and achievements with a personal and distinctive style;
* exhibit an unyielding drive for dominance and supremacy in their chosen discipline;
* experience a restless, driven state of psychological unease that finds relief through creative problem solving.

Euphoric, energizing bouts of mania or other signs of mental disorder that are not too severe or incapacitating may provide the psychological unease associated with creativity, the Kentucky psychiatrist points out. 

Eminent people who stay free of emotional troubles apparently stir up a sense of psychological unease when they feel the need for creative tension. This tactic may pleasantly jolt mood and behavior, much as mild mania does, according to Ludwig.

The existence of a multifaceted template of creative greatness raises important questions, he adds. These include the extent to which innate talent shapes stellar achievements and the role played by early physical illness and disability in the lives of eminent people.

"Given the presence of the rest of the template, chronic physical ailments may give someone a heightened sense of urgency to leave a mark on the world and achieve immortality through creative greatness," Ludwig speculates.

Ludwig's focus on creativity in a broad array of endeavors strikes a responsive chord in researchers who consider studies only of painters, poets, and fiction writers to be limited.

"This is the first well-done, properly controlled study on this issue," contends Robert S. Root-Bernstein, a biologist and historian of science at Michigan State University in East Lansing. "It shows that mental illness is not a necessary precursor or concomitant of creative eminence." 

In his book Discovering (1989), Root-Bernstein argues that psychological unease and creative tension often stem from a piercing awareness of a mismatch between conventional wisdom or a predominant theory and one's own observations.

Those who become eminent in a field grapple with and take inspiration from such insights, he argues. The tendency of highly creative painters and writers to work on their own, with little or no emotional support from colleagues and friends, may accentuate their symptoms of mental disorder over time, Root-Bernstein believes. 

In contrast, scientists often work in groups and receive a fair amount of encouragement. However, the emotional downside of scientific eminence comes with age, the Michigan State researcher says.

Scientific productivity usually peaks by young or middle adulthood, and the decline thereafter can be steepest for the most eminent investigators. Moreover, scientists have a hard time dealing with the loss of power and social contacts that accompanies retirement, according to Root-Bernstein.

He thus find it no surprise that Ludwig's investigation documents a sudden, steep rise in the suicide rate of all eminent scientists (from thesuperstars to the lower elite) at age 60 that stays elevated through age 70. The proportion of suicides by older scientists slightly exceeded that of their same-age counterparts in the arts.

Much remains unknown about the extent to which mood disorders such as manic depression, which can lead to suicide, affect top flight scientists and other highly creative people outside the arts, remarks Kay R. Jamison, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Jamison finds the results of Ludwig's study intriguing but suspects his biographical method may miss many instances of mild manic depression at the highest levels of eminence, especially in fields outside the arts.

In her book Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the ArtisticTemperament (1993, Free Press), Jamison refers to manic depression as "occasionally an exhilarating and powerfully creative force, more often a destructive one.

"Mild episodes of mania boost the fluency and frequency of thoughts, she argues. For instance, mildly manic patients spontaneously use unusual words and creative sound associations, such as rhymes and alliteration, more often than emotionally healthy controls. 

And in written drills, manic patients show a heightened facility for listing synonyms and performing other word associations. Mania produces other effects conducive to creative accomplishment, Jamison notes, such as the ability to work long hours without sleep, to focus on ideas intensely, to maintain bold and restless attitudes, and to experience deeply a variety of emotions.

"The manic-depressive temperament is, in a biological sense, an alert, sensitive system that reacts strongly and swiftly," the Baltimore scientist contends. "This is important for creativity in the arts, the sciences, and leadership.

"Mild mood fluctuations seem to benefit everyday creativity as well, asserts Ruth Richards, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco.

In one study, Richards and her coworkers found an abundance of everyday creativity in people who suffer from mild mood swings, as well as in mentally healthy relatives of manic-depressives (Science News: 9/3/88, p.151). Creativity dropped in people with full-blown manic depression, but it still exceeded that for healthy controls with no family history of mood disorders.

Levels of everyday creativity were assessed from the quality and quantity of innovative accomplishments at work, at home, and in hobbies. 

Genes involved in manic depression may have been preserved through natural selection because they give carriers of the condition's milder form the advantage of enhanced creativity, adaptability, and work output, Richards theorizes.

"I wouldn't be surprised if many of the highly eminent people Ludwig studied, including the scientists, had a family history of mood disorders,"Richards remarks. "But he's done away with the notion that all eminent people have some form of psychopathology.

"Available evidence indicates that alcoholism, mild mania, and depression indeed occurred often in the mothers, fathers, and siblings of the eminent individuals in Ludwig's sample who also suffered from those conditions. But plenty of room remains for the influence of other factors on great creative feats, Ludwig asserts.

"There are 10,000 ways to get to originality," Jamison notes. "Some people just have incredible imaginations. That doesn't mean they have a mental disorder.

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books
 
 

Patty Duke.  A Brilliant Madness  [on her experiences with bipolar disorder]

E. Jane Garland. Depression Is the Pits, but I'm Getting Better : A Guide for Adolescents

D. Jablow Hershman.  Manic Depression and Creativity

Kay Redfield Jamison.  Night Falls Fast   "A professor of psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Jamison has spent more than 20 years studying the origin and treatment for suicide. She also battled suicide herself... .. Suicide is the second major cause of death in college students and the number two killer of women between the ages of 15 and 44 worldwide."

Kay Redfield Jamison.  Touched With Fire - Manic Depressive Illnes & the Artistic Temperament

Arnold M. Ludwig, MD.  The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy

Daniel Nettle.  Strong Imagination : Madness, Creativity and Human Nature
[publisher: Oxford Univ Press:] "Rates of mental illness are hugely elevated in the families of poets, writers and artists, suggesting that the same genes, the same temperaments, and the same imaginative capacities are at work in insanity and in creative ability. Thus the reason madness continues to exist is that the traits behind it have psychological benefits as well as psychological costs. In Strong Imagination, Daniel Nettle explores the nature of mental illness, the biological mechanisms that underlie it, and its link to creative genius. He goes on to consider the place of both madness and creative imagination in the evolution of our species... Daniel Nettle studied psychology at Oxford, before completing his PhD in Anthropology at University College London. .. He has lectured in London, Oxford, Cambridge and Nigeria, and written widely across many areas of the human sciences. He is also active in the theatre."

Barry Panter, M.D. Creativity and Madness: Psychological Studies of Art and Artists

Sylvia Plath.  The Bell Jar  "Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel. The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in the early 1950s. The real Plath committed suicide in 1963 and left behind this scathingly sad, honest and perfectly-written book, which remains one of the best-told tales of a woman's descent into insanity."

Michele and Robert Scott Root-Bernstein.  Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People
[from Booklist:] "How different the painter at the easel and the physicist in the laboratory! Yet the Root-Bernsteins recognize the deep-down similarity of all creative thinking, whether in art or science. They demonstrate this similarity by comparing the accounts that various pioneers and inventors have left of their own creative processes: for Picasso just as for Einstein, for Klee just as for Feynman, the creative impulse always begins in vision, in emotion, in intuition. Such intuition naturally resists parsing, but the authors do identify and explain the use of 13 tools -- from body thinking to synthesizing -- for breaking out of inherited categories and exploring new possibilities."

Albert Rothenberg.  Creativity and Madness : New Findings and Old Stereotypes    [reader:] "Rothenberg looks at creativity from the perspective of a scientist. He examines psychological ideas... personality characteristics.. and relates them all to his search for answers to why some can create .. works of art. He dispells myths about creativity being some mystical birth-right that only the chosen few possess, and implies the conclusion that creativity is more the product of an aware mind and feeling human being than tormented genius."

Sandra Walker Russ.   Affect, Creative Experience, and Psychological Adjustment
Contents: chapters: On the Relationship Between Affect and Creative Problem Solving; Mood and Creativity Research: The View from a Conceptual Organizing Perspective; The Emotional Resonance Model of Creativity: Theoretical and Practical Extensions; Play, Affect, and Creativity: Theory and Research, etc.

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