Essay: Creativity—the healthy muse

Psychiatric diagnoses of eminent people have been derived not from clinical sources but from general and popular biographies revealing apparent clay feet of creative heroes, unproven gossip and hearsay, and a field called pathography, in which both literary and psychological analysts describe correl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Lancet (British edition) 2006-12, Vol.368, p.S8-S9
Main Author: Rothenberg, Albert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anxiety
Atoms & subatomic particles
Chronic illnesses
Gossip
Medical research
Mental disorders
Panic attacks
Personality disorders
Psychology
Romantic period
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Summary:Psychiatric diagnoses of eminent people have been derived not from clinical sources but from general and popular biographies revealing apparent clay feet of creative heroes, unproven gossip and hearsay, and a field called pathography, in which both literary and psychological analysts describe correlations between artists' psychological constitutions and pathological elements they see in subject matter or characters. [...]there are sharp differences in effects; mental illness symptoms--compulsions, obsessions, delusions, panic attacks, depression, and personality disorders--deviate in stereotyped and frequently banal ways, whereas creativity involves novel and rich results.
ISSN:0140-6736
1474-547X
DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69905-4