Mental Disorders and Artistic Ability

[surftheiop]

I know this is probably a topic more appropriate for a psychology forum or something but I was curious if you all had any theories/anecdotal evidence about it.

It seems like there is a disproportionally high incidence of mental illness in people who have artistic professions (artists, muscicians, poets, writers, etc.). I think I might have seen a chart somewhere that gave some solid stats to show this is true but even if im just remembering something that I never saw Im pretty sure the the mental illness rate in professional artists/muscicians has to be alot higher than the general population.

I was curious which you think is more important for the causation? Is it related to the fact that artists are more likely to have unstable incomes/family situations/acceptance issues/etc. which cause lots of mental stress and lead to more mental disorders?

Or do the experiences of someone with a mental disorder somehow help that person to be more creative?

I know there surely isnt a straight cut answer to this but was curious if you all had any theories

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[whopper]

I almost became an artist. My younger brother actually ended up becoming one which was wierd because he was always the science guy (IQ 159, got a 1300 on the SATs when he was in 8th grade, and that was using the older, harder grading system-got some crazy number in high school, mine were pretty good too but not as good as his), and I was always the art guy. In college we switched-I liked Psychology at that point just too much and decided to get out of art & into psychiatry. He became more & more attracted to art from my own artwork, and it was well just wierd...

My sister became a film director, which is something else I wanted to do.

But getting back to the OT...& having quite a few artists in my own life...

Its a chicken vs the egg thing.

Several artists if you buy into the EMDR personality types (more simplistically a left vs right thing) use more passion vs logic in their decision making. That of course is a generalization and I've seen several artists be very very techical, and in fact some forms of art require a lot of left brain thinking (e.g. computer animation).

Several people I know who go into art, well they go to art school, live a care free lifestyle, and that opens themselves up to problems. For example, my wife's ex roommate was a musician who was well pretty much a borderline with his lifestyle. He got all the problems a borderline would get. Several of the types he hung around, he'd only do so if they were attractive, rich, or histrionic. He had to have an in-crowd that catered to his narcicism. He came up with a notion that only by hanging with the "beautiful people" would his own artistic abilities be nurtured.

What I noticed happen to several of these types is they end up living the expected course of a Borderline.

Several "schools of thought" in the artistic world encourage the bohemian lifestyle. Its chic to be poor and not having a care for the world in your 20s. Of course as most of us know, this does catch up with you.
For example several British actors have stories where they intentionally got drunk to disinhibit themselves & to come to closer connections with their own emotions. Several artists have some type of variation of this such as the Doors using illicit substances.

Another aspect is several artists seem to romanticize mental illness, and I sometimes wonder if this may predispose them to becoming mentally ill. For example someone, somehow, from somewhere has started a cultural urban legend that schizophrenics may somehow be in touch with God, other dimensions what have you. For those that are trying to be creative & unique, well some of them buy into this. Now you can't will yourself to be schizophrenic, but I do think this does encourage some people to try drugs, think illogically, and impulsively, and of course this does raise the risk of an Axis I disorder.

In our twisted society, having been in a mental institution, or having done some anti-social things can give you street cred. Street cred can give you attention as an artist.

Several types of art--well its next to impossible to make it. E.g. if you're an opera singer, they're only looking for 1-3 people and several hundred will compete for the spot. I'll be brutally honest as well...it usually came down to about the top 10 people, and the person who got the role was often times sleeping with someone (or doing something else on the edge such as snorting cocaine with someone) in the decision making process. Several have gotten somewhere only by doing something on that order. I'm sure that has mental health complications for the people who get the role as well as don't. Ed Burns mentioned in a book that expect to get 100 nos for every yes in the film industry.

And there's another type of artist/performer as well...the musician who's education is one of the world's best but they have very little to show for it. E.g. a violinist who went to Juliard, practices 7 hrs a day and is considered one of the best, but not good enough to make money off of it. Remember, in our media, we only remember few names. Those that are out of the top ten, well they might as well have been in the top 1000 in their ability to make money. I've seen patients who became very envious of their other highly educated friends who went into other fields with financial stability such as medicine. One particular case I know of, the violinist pretty much ended up living in a slum, while his friends were making 6 figures. He was playing in a symphony barely making anything, while practicing all day long for his craft. He became depressed.

 

[Rapunzel]

My family certainly has both tendencies towards artistic talent, as well as mental illness. They really don't talk about mental health issues, so I don't know all of what might be happening in my extended family, but the ones that I do know include bipolar, pervasive developmental disability, schizophrenia, and plenty of depression and anxiety for everyone.

We also have musicians, sculptors, painters, you name it. Nobody quite making a living at the art itself, but some do make a living in art-related trades (such as instrument repair and creation, teaching art and music, etc.), and several could have been professional singers, etc., if they had pursued it.

It is possible that the mental illness allows for a looser kind of thinking and intensity of feelings that allows for more creativity. It's also possible the intensity and loose thinking that art requires if one is good at it leaves a person vulnerable to mental illness. Or maybe there is a genetic link. Another observation that I can make is that the most talented in my family are not necessarily the craziest, although they have experienced pain - more than their share. Also, the craziest in my family have generally not experienced a "bohemian lifestyle." And as far as I know, everyone is free of alcohol and illegal drugs - can't say the same for prescription drugs, although they do tend to be used appropriately. We have an unusual number of left-handed people, too.

I don't know if this helps or not, but it's certainly an interesting question.

 

[Abram Hoffer]

This is all in God's plan. The reason art is so expensive: because most with severe, chronic mental illness are unable to maintain a 9-5 job. Hence the huge salary and leisurely hours. 😀

 

[billypilgrim37]

Kay Redfield Jamison covers this entire topic near-perfectly in Touched with Fire.

 

[peppy]

Think about how hard it would be to complete a rigidly structured career path like, say, medical school if you were experiencing severe mental illness. I'm sure many of us have seen the struggles that some med students have with keeping up in med school when trying to deal with depression or anxiety issues. The situation must be far worse for medical students who have their first psychotic episode in medical school (surely it has happened, since a large portion of the medical student population is in training during the years that are high risk for the initial onset of schizophrenia).
In the artistic world, though, erratic behavior (as whopper pointed out) is tolerated or even downright encouraged. Rather than mental illness "causing" artistic impulses, I think mentally ill people may wind up in the arts because it's simply easier to get by as an artist if you are experiencing disordered thoughts or strong emotions that you find it hard to control than it would be to hold down a job as an accountant!

 

[nancysinatra]

I think mentally ill people may wind up in the arts because it's simply easier to get by as an artist if you are experiencing disordered thoughts or strong emotions that you find it hard to control than it would be to hold down a job as an accountant!

To SUCCEED as in the arts is even harder than to succeed in medicine. The arts are ruthlessly competitive and the vast majority of artists, poets, musicians, dancers, etc. never make a dime from what they do. Those who do succeed are invariable able to articulate their technique and vision and often teach it to students as well.

Most thought disordered patients could never, ever succeed as artists. Perhaps it is different for mood disordered patients but they too have to be able to put together coherent works that will appeal to gallery owners, publishers, etc. as well as a decent percentage of the public.

If anyone is in New York, there is a fantastic exhibit at the Folk Art Museum by Henry Darger, who actually provides a good example of what seems like it can only be called "schizotypal" art. He drew and wrote and 15,000 page manifesto about a "child slave rebellion" which is on exhibit through Sept 2009. It is very intriguing to ask how he could have been so well, weird, and also created something so epic and visually interesting.

 

[whopper]

I need to correct myself...

Several artists if you buy into the EMDR personality types

Mean to write Meyers Briggs types. Don't know why my brain blipped & put EMDR.

It is hard to make it as an artist. That's one of the reasons why I chose not to go into it. I figured the reality was I'd probably do a Folgers Coffee commercial which I'd dread.

To SUCCEED as in the arts is even harder than to succeed in medicine. The arts are ruthlessly competitive and the vast majority of artists, poets, musicians, dancers, etc. never make a dime from what they do

Very much agree.....
Medicine is hard, but it is very structured, and odds are so long as you work hard, you'll make it. Art is way different. You could be one of the best, but because you're not going to sleep with the casting director you're not going to get a chance.

And to add another dimension, my brother went to one of the top art schools in the country, and several of his colleagues were in weed out programs that were on the same order as ruthless premed programs. For example he mentioned to me that his school had one of the only car body design majors in the world. He mentioned that car companies would draft from his art school, but only take about 1/2 of the class. The other 1/2 that was not taken pretty much were ignored the rest of their lives. He mentioned the competition in that field was tremendous--with people pulling work hours as rigorous as medical school.
Art is a very broad field, with several specific fields in the arts very scientific & technical.

 

[surftheiop]

I need to correct myself...


Mean to write Meyers Briggs types. Don't know why my brain blipped & put EMDR.


Art is a very broad field, with several specific fields in the arts very scientific & technical.

I guess Freud would propose your skeptical of both Meyers Briggs and EMDR....

Also I know what you mean about the highly competitive art schools, my girlfriend's brother is at a really competitive art school and he probably works harder (atleast longer hours) than I do and Im in one of the heaviest workload major at one of the most demanding schools in country. But for the purposes of what Im posting here I was talking more about the artists/musicians who aren't in the ultra-competitive schooling path.

Animators and designers at top tier art schools seem to have very different charectoristics than the average poet/author/musician etc. and it seems like the artists at those schools (as far as the mental stressors go) would be very similar to people trying to get into I-Banking or big law firms, etc.

I could be wrong, but I think the vast majority of people in the arts didnt go through that sort of schooling so I was more curious about the people who werent as academic about art or who might not even be a professional artists but its a major part of their life.

I wonder if there is something fundamentaly related about "creativity" which seems to mean doing things differently that others have done and mental illness which seems to mean having different brain states than the general population.

Like lets just say that 99% of a hypothetical earth's population were manic-depressive, I wonder if the artists in that world be disproportionally made up of the %1 of the population that we would call "normal"? (Because they would have a different worldview and therefore be able to think more "creatively")

 

[whopper]

But for the purposes of what Im posting here I was talking more about the artists/musicians who aren't in the ultra-competitive schooling path.

Nah, trust me, I understood what you meant. I just didn't want to get pidgeon holed into being accused of generalizing all artists into these Bohemian types.

I've never seen anyone do a study on people into the "art scene"-my way of putting a word to the more distinct art demographic you refer towards. Though IMHO its filled with higher amounts of Axis II Cluster B disorders, a lot more instability, and substance abuse.

 

[nancysinatra]

Like lets just say that 99% of a hypothetical earth's population were manic-depressive, I wonder if the artists in that world be disproportionally made up of the %1 of the population that we would call "normal"? (Because they would have a different worldview and therefore be able to think more "creatively")

That whole 1% would be in business as psychiatrists, I think.

This is a great question though!

 

[peppy]

To SUCCEED as in the arts is even harder than to succeed in medicine. The arts are ruthlessly competitive and the vast majority of artists, poets, musicians, dancers, etc. never make a dime from what they do. Those who do succeed are invariable able to articulate their technique and vision and often teach it to students as well.

True. When I wrote that, I wasn't really thinking of it in terms of "hitting the big time". I was thinking in terms of the people I've seen on my inpatient rotations in the inner city, who were scraping by as street corner musicians busking for tips and that sort of thing. Or Wesley Willis, who became somewhat well known because his schizophrenia inspired bizarre music that people were fascinated by.
I guess my point was just that a free-form, "artistic" kind of career allows a mentally ill person to avoid the barriers of licensing requirements, set working hours, coworkers that you need to impress/get along with, etc.

 

[dianamd]

I could be wrong, but I think the vast majority of people in the arts didnt go through that sort of schooling so I was more curious about the people who werent as academic about art or who might not even be a professional artists but its a major part of their life.

I wonder if there is something fundamentaly related about "creativity" which seems to mean doing things differently that others have done and mental illness which seems to mean having different brain states than the general population.

Well, I think that most of the people professionally in the "arts" (working at museums, galleries, selling regularly) -- have some kind of formal art education. That's part of the criticism about art in the past 10 years or whatever, that it's become like an inside job, where everyone went to certain schools and hang out at the same parties -- the woman selling the painting knows the new artist she's representing.

However, for those who do art as a major part of their life -- eg my brother is a photographer for pleasure -- I totally agree that most of those people have no formal art education.

And yes, I always had the idea that some degree of depression or anxiety, in particular, would be good for the artist. It explains some of the frustration in art, which comes out through a hugely creative expression. If someone is totally balanced and happy, totally comfortable, why would they make art? Unless it was still life paintings or something....

Your idea is interesting - about creativity and people with mental disorders having a different outlook on the world.

Bottom line, I think that some mental illnesses (depression, anxiety, +/- ADD, +/- OCPD) can predispose someone to art. But I can't think of too many artists who were schizophrenic, had an eating disorder, were autistic, etc.

 

[Tradewind]

Bottom line, I think that some mental illnesses (depression, anxiety, +/- ADD, +/- OCPD) can predispose someone to art. But I can't think of too many artists who were schizophrenic, had an eating disorder, were autistic, etc.

May be true of the visual arts, but less true of the performing arts. Plenty of actors, singers and dancers with eating disorders.

 

[whopper]

IMHO, there is a certain Myers-Briggs type that pursues art. That type is predisposed to certain disorders. To maintain some PC-esque dialogue, I've seen my fair share of people predisposed or already having other disorders in medschool (Schizoid, Type A, Obsessive Compulsive PD, Narcissistic PD).

Some good movies I've seen that show good mental health issues & art---
The Agony & the Estacy: Charleton Heston plays Michelangelo. No I couldn't detect any mental illness on his part (though maybe a bit of OCD).
Youtube clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUqiSigNu7Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR-csitAjoY&feature=related
It does show very black & white thinking on Michelangelo's part, which I noticed several artists have. They feel that they cannot do something unless they are inspired to do it. In turn, the reality of life is that they must often do something that is not from their inspiration.

Another: Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MxESaEh9pQ&feature=related

Rent is more of a modern version of artists with tumultuous lifestyles. I however (and I've gotten flack for this) saw this as more of a bunch of Cluster B people, not artists. The original work it is based on, La Boheme, were more about artists. The characters in La Boheme I felt were more honorable & their sacrifices were to the point where only someone who cared for their art would make. E.g. someone whines because they have to throw their original script into the fire--with no backup copies. That's how cold they are. In Rent, they whine but the musical/movie was in the day & age of being able to save it on the computer, so why whine about it as if its a tragedy?