Article Highlights
Research shows links between certain traits and the predisposition to mental illness or creative accomplishments.
Positive psychology values creativity as a strength that can improve quality of life.
There are different theories regarding the connection between creativity and depression:
1. Creativity Serves as Self-help for Depression
2. Depression Provides Subject Matter for Art
3. Depression is Required to Create Art
4. Recovery from Depression Inspires Creativity
Creativity can spark flow, an experience of intense concentration on a skilled activity.
Flow promotes happiness and mental well-being.
Related Links
Applying the Science of Positive Psychology
to Improve Society | Claremont Graduate University
Authentic Happiness | University of Pennsylvania
Considering Creativity: The Sylvia Plath Effect | APA
Creating Flow | Psychology Today
Creativity and Madness | PRI
Experts Ponder Link Between Creativity, Mood Disorders | CNN Health
Finding Flow | Psychology Today
Five Writing Tips from Ralph Waldo Emerson | Psychology Today
Flow | Wikipedia
Getting Serious About Happiness | Time
Life as Art Blog | Shelley Carson
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi | TED
Quality of Life Research Center | Claremont Graduate University
What Exactly is Creativity? | APA
Creativity: a Link to
Well-being or Madness?
Are madness, depression and creativity linked? Or, is creativity simply one of the keys to help you thrive? Research results from Harvard psychologist, Dr. Shelly Carson suggest that, depending on circumstances, certain traits, particularly the inability to ignore the irrelevant combined with exceptional flexibility and intelligence, may predispose someone either to mental illness or creative accomplishments.
Contrast this with another area of study that ignores the biology of creativity and instead simply values it as a human strength --- one of many that helps individuals and communities thrive. This new area of study, positive psychology, focuses on nurturing talents and improving normal life rather than concentrating on mental illness. Research indicates that, regardless of circumstances, applying positive psychology can help people become happier and improve their quality of life. One way to improve is to find your "flow." Creativity can spark a state of flow, an experience where a person is fully immersed and energized by focused involvement in an activity.
So which is it? A sum of qualities that bring on either mental illness or creative achievements or a means to well-being?
Many artists, including Virginia Wolf, have complained that they cannot work during the worst throes of depression. With this in mind, Dr. Shelly Carson outlines four theories regarding the connection between creativity and depression:
Creativity Serves as Self-help for Depression
Some artists and writers admit to engaging in their art to cope.
Depression Provides Subject Matter for Art
Some artists produce their best works in the depths of despair or madness. Think Vincent Van Gogh or Edvard Munch.
Depression is Required to Create Art
Great art arises from a full understanding of the human condition. For this, an artist must experience extreme highs and lows.
Recovery from Depression Inspires Creativity
Research from Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison suggests that creative work occurs in the transition from depression to normal or from normal to manic stage.
Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of world's leading researchers on positive psychology and director of Claremont Graduate School's Quality of Life Research Center proposes that people are happiest in a state of flow. For those with creative leanings and skills, the artistic process can spark flow. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi identifies eight conditions of flow:
1. Clear Goals and Feedback – A person faces a clear set of goals that require action. Art, sports, or practicing any skill allows a person to focus on goals that provide immediate feedback during the course of the activity.
2. Focused Concentration – To find flow, a person engages in an activity that requires a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention.
3. Loss of Self – With intense concentration comes loss of the ego and the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted Sense of Time – In flow, the activity and intense concentration alters the perception of time.
5. Balanced Ability and Challenge – The balancing of ability level and challenge naturally attracts the growth in skills and challenges. As skills improve a person increases the challenges to get back into flow.
6. Control – A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
7. Rewarding – The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
For positive psychology, happiness and mental well-being are by-products of flow.
What do you think about creativity and well-being? Please take a look at the supporting articles and videos on this page, join us in blogs on the topic and explore the Body & Spirit center for more information on promoting well-being.
