Why is Bipolar Disorder Closely Associated with Artistic Creativity?
A documented connection
For centuries, observers have noted a fascinating link between bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, and creativity. Many famous artists, writers, and musicians are believed to have lived with the condition, including Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, Van Gogh, Caravaggio, Kurt Cobain, Edvard Munch, Jackson Pollock, Vivien Leigh, and Robert Schumann. While bipolar disorder is a serious psychiatric condition, marked by extreme mood swings, mania, and depression, its traits, especially in milder forms, appear to overlap with heightened creative potential and intelligence.
Bipolar disorder is characterized by intense shifts in mood and energy. Manic or hypomanic (a milder form of mania) episodes bring racing thoughts, elevated confidence, reduced need for sleep, and a flood of ideas. These states can accelerate divergent thinking, the ability to form unusual connections and generate multiple solutions to problems, a hallmark of creative innovation. Depressive phases, meanwhile, foster introspection and emotional depth, providing rich material for artistic expression.
Andrew Nierenberg, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University and Director of the Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation, says that bipolar disorder allows people to perceive the world in ways others do not. A University of Lancaster study showed that bipolar participants “described a wide range of internal states that they believe are experienced at a far greater intensity than those without the condition, including increased perceptual sensitivity, creativity, focus and clarity of thought.” Much of Schumann’s musical output happened during prolonged manic states, and Munch wrote that he felt his mental disorders were essential to his artistic output.
University of Iowa neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen studied prominent authors and found that nearly half had bipolar disorder, a rate far above the general population. Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins University and the author of the standard textbook on bipolar disorder, surveyed prominent British writers and artists, discovering that many experienced intense mood shifts coinciding with bursts of creativity. Studies at Stanford University and the U.S. National Institute of Health confirm that people with bipolar disorder are more likely to pursue creative occupations and score higher on measures of artistic imagination.
Bipolar disorder has evolutionary roots. Neel Burton, an Oxford University psychiatrist and author of the book The Meaning of Madness: A Critical Guide to Mental Health and Illness, writes that certain bipolar traits were advantageous in ancestral environments. Hypomanic states, with their heightened energy, sociability, and willingness to take risks, aided leadership, innovation, and mate attraction. Depressive phases promoted reflection, caution, and problem-solving.
The persistence in the population of mental conditions, such as autism, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, and bipolar disorder, points to the traits providing important evolutionary benefits despite their serious challenges. If they didn’t provide any advantage, natural selection would have weeded them out.
It is important to stress that, while manic and hypomanic traits can boost creativity, full-blown bipolar disorder is debilitating. Extreme mania and drastic mood swings often involve delusions, hallucinations, dangerous and self-destructive behavior, and require hospitalization. Van Gogh and Schumann were repeatedly hospitalized, with Van Gogh self-mutilating and committing suicide, and Schumann spending his last years institutionalized.
It is the underlying traits themselves, rather than extreme episodes, that fuel creative output.
References
Burton, N (2012, March 22). Bipolar disorder and creativity. Psychology Today.
Johnson, S. L., et al. (2012). Creativity and bipolar disorder: Touched by fire or burning with questions? Clinical Psychology Review.
Thomson, H. (2015, August 18). Intelligence, creativity and bipolar disorder may share underlying genetics. The Guardian.
I have always joked that the "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment works best if both the cat and the observer are bi-polar...
Fascinating!