Creative People and Madness

Creative People: Personality

and Mental Health

1

Director Tim Burton:"I’ve always been blessed with

being easily ignored or avoided. I think maybe it’s

because people think I look a little crazy.”

2

HuffPost Live program:"A Brilliant Sacrifice"[October 24, 2012]

Program description: “A new study confirms that certain mental disorders are linked to creative genius."

3

Judith Schlesinger, PhD notes the widely-circulated Swedish

study [by the Karolinska Institute] mentioned in the

program has "significant issues" in terms of scientific validity.

4

Cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman comments,

“I do believe that if the mental processes associated with

psychosis were evaporated entirely from this world, art

would suck..."

5

6

Musician Sting: “Do I have to be in pain to write? I thought so, as most of my contemporaries did;

you had to be the struggling artist, the tortured, painful,

poetic wreck."

7

In his article Mis-Diagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children (and his

related book), James T. Webb, Ph.D. notes, “Many gifted and talented children (and

adults) are being mis-diagnosed by psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians,

and other health care professionals” as having ADHD, OCD, Mood Disorders and

other conditions.

8

Creativity coach Eric Maisel notes: “Only a small percentage of creative people work as often or as deeply as, by all

rights, they might be expected to work. “What stops them? Anxiety or some face

of anxiety like doubt, worry, or fear..."

[Photo: Nicolas Cage in "Adaptation"]

9

See related notes, articles and other resources at:Creative People: Personality and Mental Health