Large-scale study confirms link between creativity and mental illness
October 16, 2012 in Psychology & Psychiatry
(Medical Xpress)—People in creative professions are treated more often for mental illness than the general population, there being a particularly salient connection between writing and schizophrenia. This according to researchers at Karolinska Institutet, whose large-scale Swedish registry study is the most comprehensive ever in its field.
Last year, the team showed that artists and scientists were more common amongst families where bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is present, compared to the population at large. They subsequently expanded their study to many more psychiatric diagnoses - such as schizoaffective disorder, depression, anxiety syndrome, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, autism, ADHD, anorexia nervosa and suicide - and to include people in outpatient care rather than exclusively hospital patients.
The present study tracked almost 1.2 million patients and their relatives, identified down to second-cousin level. Since all were matched with healthy controls, the study incorporated much of the Swedish population from the most recent decades. All data was anonymized and cannot be linked to any individuals.
The results confirmed those of their previous study: certain mental illness - bipolar disorder - is more prevalent in the entire group of people with artistic or scientific professions, such as dancers, researchers, photographers and authors. Authors specifically also were more common among most of the other psychiatric diseases (including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety syndrome and substance abuse) and were almost 50 per cent more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
The researchers also observed that creative professions were more common in the relatives of patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa and, to some extent, autism. According to Simon Kyaga, consultant in psychiatry and doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the results give cause to reconsider approaches to mental illness.
"If one takes the view that certain phenomena associated with the patients illness are beneficial, it opens the way for a new approach to treatment," he says. "In that case, the doctor and patient must come to an agreement on what is to be treated, and at what cost. In psychiatry and medicine generally there has been a tradition to see the disease in black-and-white terms and to endeavour to treat the patient by removing everything regarded as morbid."
More information: Kyaga, S. et al., Mental illness, suicide and creativity: 40-Year prospective total population study. Journal of Psychiatric Research, corrected proof online 9 October 2012. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.g… ubmed_docsum
Journal reference:
Journal of Psychiatric Research
Provided by
Karolinska Institutet
-
Veterans with bipolar disorder may have increased risk of suicide
Nov 01, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Risk of violent crimes not increased with bipolar disorder
Sep 07, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Offspring of two psychiatric patients have increased risk of developing mental disorders
Mar 01, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may share common underlying factors
Jul 02, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
High rates of substance abuse exist among veterans with mental illness
Apr 19, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Pressure-volume curve: Elastic Recoil Pressure don't make sense
May 18, 2013
-
If you became brain-dead, would you want them to pull the plug?
May 17, 2013
-
MRI bill question
May 15, 2013
-
Ratio of Hydrogen of Oxygen in Dessicated Animal Protein
May 13, 2013
-
Alcohol and acetaminophen
May 13, 2013
-
Marie Curie's leukemia
May 13, 2013
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
Ketamine shows significant therapeutic benefit in people with treatment-resistant depression
Patients with treatment-resistant major depression saw dramatic improvement in their illness after treatment with ketamine, an anesthetic, according to the largest ketamine clinical trial to-date led by researchers from the ...
Psychology & Psychiatry
May 19, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
1
|
US psychiatry gets makeover in new manual
The latest makeover to a massive psychiatric tome honored by some, reviled by others and even called the "Bible" of mental disorders is being released Saturday with a host of new changes.
Psychology & Psychiatry
May 18, 2013 |
not rated yet |
1
Study reviews readmissions in inpatient psychiatric facilities
(HealthDay)—Most Medicare beneficiaries treated in inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPFs) exhibit characteristics associated with hospital readmission, according to a report prepared for the National Association ...
Psychology & Psychiatry
May 17, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Skydiving is never plane sailing
Skydivers show the same level of physical stress before every jump whether a first-timer or experienced jumper, say Northumbria researchers.
Psychology & Psychiatry
May 17, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
|
Kids, especially boys, perceive sadness of depressed parents
Children of depressed parents pick up on their parents' sadness—whether mom or dad realizes their mood or not.
Psychology & Psychiatry
May 17, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
1
|
Treatment of sleep apnea improves glucose levels in prediabetes
Optimal treatment of sleep apnea in patients with prediabetes improves blood sugar (glucose) levels and thus can reduce cardiometabolic risk, according to a study to be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference in ...
Whole-cell vaccine was more effective than acellular vaccine during CA pertussis outbreak
Whole-cell pertussis vaccines were more effective at protecting against pertussis than acellular pertussis vaccines during a large recent outbreak, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study published in Pediatrics.
Blame your parents for bunion woes
A novel study reports that white men and women of European descent inherit common foot disorders, such as bunions (hallux valgus) and lesser toe deformities, including hammer or claw toe. Findings from the Framingham Foot ...
Genetic diversity within tumors predicts outcome in head and neck cancer
A new measure of the heterogeneity – the variety of genetic mutations – of cells within a tumor appears to predict treatment outcomes of patients with the most common type of head and neck cancer. In the May 20 issue ...
Molecular marker from pancreatic 'juices' helps identify pancreatic cancer
Researchers at Mayo Clinic have developed a promising method to distinguish between pancreatic cancer and chronic pancreatitis—two disorders that are difficult to tell apart. A molecular marker obtained from pancreatic ...
Commonly used catheters double risk of blood clots in ICU and cancer patients
Touted for safety, ease and patient convenience, peripherally inserted central catheters have become many clinicians' go-to for IV delivery of antibiotics, nutrition, chemotherapy, and other medications.
Oct 16, 2012
Rank: 2.3 / 5 (3)
Oct 16, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
-and in what way is that relevant for their results?
Oct 16, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
The assumption is:
Psychiatrists and psychologists have the fewest of any group/individual disorders.
Nothing is further removed from reality than this assumption.
Oct 16, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
"Psychiatrists and psychologists have the fewest of any group/individual disorders."
- Said nobody, ever.
I think ultimately psychiatry does not claim to be the "authority" on mental illness so much as many people, including yourself imagine it to claim. It simply takes a series of difficult to quantify and difficult to treat disorders with complex physiological underpinnings (which are just beginning to be understood) and assigns to them a set of objective measures so that SOME attempt at treatment can be attempted. its not an exact science, but is any science a truly exact science? just people doing their best to solve real world problems, instead of trolling physorg comment sections...
Oct 16, 2012
Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
Oct 16, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
Results of previous studies confirm that: certain mental illnesses is more prevalent in the entire group of people belonging to psychiatric and psychological professions...and were the most likely to commit suicide that the general population.
So yes, psychiatry can and does lay 'claim' and 'authority' to this statistic.
So yes, they 'are doing they best to solve' their own 'real world problems' before laying claim towards others of trolling physorg comment sections...
Oct 16, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
that=than
Typos
Oct 17, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
Creativity is something that's particularly useful in areas where there's a deficiency. If you're missing an arm or a leg, you have to be creative to workaround it. Same goes for mental deficiencies.
Oct 17, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
http://en.wikiped...asthesia
http://en.wikiped...esthesia
And here showing the most promise:
http://en.wikiped...aptation
The gap between altered senses and where 'something' is missing altogether is a gap the present brain tries to bridge.
Look forward to the day...
Oct 17, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
Learning - a power of thought.
Oct 18, 2012
Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
the title that brings smile on the face of every single fruit loop on this forum...
Oct 18, 2012
Rank: 2 / 5 (1)
You could certainly imagine that these professions (including psychologists, psychiatrists) are highly self-aware and perhaps they are more likely to report and get treatment for mental illness, where someone else may just ignore it, or find it such a gradual decline that they don't even realize it.
Oct 18, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
So if your definition of creative is that your a scientist or an artist, that is a pretty vague and inclusive definition, thus I wonder if high stress could be a greater feature of this group than "creativity"
Oct 20, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
Care to share your delusional statements with any type of factual evidence? That is funny, because anemia is one of the things commonly checked for before diagnosis, which leaves your statement utterly useless.
Please refrain from judging the diagnosis of millions of people before you have an adequate knowledge of the subject matter, your only doing disservice to those who have it and to those who diagnose it as well.
Thank you.