Tessica Tripple
10th English
2-10-09
The connection between depression and creativity
Since the beginning of written human history, there has always been a need for people to express their thoughts, ideas and feelings though creative forms of communication such as music, painting, the performing arts and writing. There are the individuals who express themselves more than others, using these techniques. These individuals are extremely creative and are usually held in high esteem for their work, ideas and insight on life; these individuals are commonly known as artists.
The human emotion span is very large and the reasons behind people’s emotional and mental reactions have fascinated the psychology world since the beginning of modern practices. One idea that is becoming more and more recognized is that there is link between creativity and depression.
This idea first developed it was discovered was found that many artists throughout history had symptoms of depression or had been diagnosed with depression.
But how is this? Is creativity a side affect? Or does creativity lead to depression?
Recently, CNN did a report concerning questions like this after the great 20th century writer, David Foster Wallace, committed suicide September 12, 2008. There are several points in this report that I would like to use and emphasizes, points that are important when discussing this idea. Dwelling on the same thoughts for extended period of time: this is a way of perfecting ideas, but obsessing over a thought can lead to more complex ideas and emotions. Concerns and problems also become bigger or more threatening in some cases. “It's pretty clear if you read Wallace's books that he was a very obsessive, kind of ruminating guy, you can see it in his sentences. ... They're breathless and they need to be annotated, and the annotations need to be annotated again." says Paul Verhaeghen, associate professor of psychology at Georgia Institute of Technology. Verhaeghen, also a novelist, describes himself as a “somewhat mood dissordered person”. "One of the things I do is think about something over and over and over again, and that's when I start writing," Verhaeghen explained.
Another point that I myself feel is very important is, sensitivity. Being sensitive to their surroundings has been a quality that artists must either have or develop throughtout their career. But can a person become too sensitive? Accourding to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, professor of psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California,
the answer is yes. “Such hypersensitivity can lead people to worry about things that other people don't worry about as much,” Csikszentmihalyi states, “and [that] can lead to depression.The arts are more dangerous [than other professions] because they require sensitivity to a large extent," he says. "If you go too far you can pay a price -- you can be too sensitive to live in this world." Becoming too sensitive to surroundings can easily affect a person’s mood. Colors, lights, sounds, the emotions of others, can lead to a loss of ones own emotion control.
And lastly, internal analyzing also helps develop depression. Self critique quickly becomes negative, and when it is added to all of the above, becomes a potentially dangerous concoction.
The idea of a link between depression and creativity has the “the chicken or the egg” question, and many experts have statistics that back up both points of view, but I personally, after studying both sides of this much debated question, have come to believe that creativity can help lead to depression.
Links and sources http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/10/07/creativity.depression/index.html
Myers, David G. (Ed.). (1995). Psychology. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
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