Enjoy these webinar slides from 'Bipolar Creativity: The Evidence and the Gaps', co-hosted by CREST.BD and the Sean Costello Memorial Fund for Bipolar Research. In this webinar, Dr. Sheri Johnson, Dr. Erin Michalak and Debbie Ann Smith discussed recent research findings exploring the relationship between creativity and bipolar disorder. You can also watch the video at: http://ow.ly/R9OtU

1. Bipolar Creativity:
The Evidence and the Gaps
Dr. Sheri Johnson
Professor, Department of Psychology
Director of the Cal Mania (Calm) program,
University of California Berkeley
Dr. Erin Michalak
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry
University of British Columbia
Network Lead, CREST.BD
Debbie Ann Smith
Sean Costello Memorial Fund
for Bipolar Research

2. Objectives
1. Review prior research on
the relationship between
creativity and bipolar
disorder
2. Share results from two
new studies exploring
creativity and BD

4.  twitter.com/CREST_BD - @CREST_BD
 twitter.com/erin_michalak - @erin_michalak
 twitter.com/seansfund - @seansfund
 facebook.com/CRESTBDBipolarResearch
 facebook.com/seancostellomemorialfund

5. Mission:
The purpose of The Sean Costello Memorial
Fund for Bipolar Research is to apply Sean’s
celebrity and music to address the
connection between creativity and bipolar
disorder in three ways: Research, Advocacy
and Reduction of Stigma.

6. Longstanding recognition of possible
relationship between heightened creativity
and bipolar disorder….

7. • Hans Christian Andersen
• Honore de Balzac
• William Faulkner (H)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald (H)
• Graham Greene
• Ernest Hemingway (H, S)
• Hermann Hesse (H, SA)
• Henrik Ibsen
• Henry James
• William James
• Samuel Clemens (Mark
Twain)
• Joseph Conrad (SA)
• Charles Dickens
• Isak Dinesen (SA)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Robert Lowell (H)
• Herman Melville
• Eugene O'Neill (H, SA)
• Francis Parkman
• John Ruskin (H)
• Mary Shelley
• Robert Louis Stevenson
• August Strindberg
• Leo Tolstoy
• Tennessee Williams (H)
• Virginia Woolf (H, S)
• Emile Zola
Authors believed to have manic episodes (from Jamison, 1993)

8. Authors believed to have mood disorders
• William Blake
• George Gordon, Lord Byron
• Harley Coleridge
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Emily Dickinson
• T.S. Eliot (H)
• Victor Hugo
• Samuel Johnson
• John Keats
• Edna St. Vincent Millay (H)
• Sylvia Plath (H, S)
• Edgar Allan Poe (SA)
• Ezra Pound (H)
• Laura Riding (SA)
• Theodore Roethke (H)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (SA)
• Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Walt Whitman

9. Musicians and composers believed
to have manic episodes
• Anton Arensky
• Hector Berlioz (SA)
• George Frederic Handel
• Gustav Holst
• Charles Ives
• Gustav Mahler
• Modest Mussorgsky
• Sergey Rachmaninoff
• Robert Schumann (H, SA)
• Peter Tchaikovsky
• Irving Berlin (H)
• Noel Coward
• Charles Mingus (H)
• Charles Parker (H, SA)
• Cole Porter (H)
• Kurt Cobain, musician
(Nirvana) (S)

10. Artists believed to have bipolar disorder
• Paul Gauguin (SA)
• Vincent van Gogh (H, S)
• Arshile Gorky (S)
• Edvard Munch (H)
• Georgia O'Keeffe (H)
• Jackson Pollock (H)
• Mark Rothko (S)

15. Many famous
artists have bipolar
disorder.
Conclusion 1:

17. Does the
pattern hold
up in
research?

18. Creativity
Bipolar
Disorder

19. Bipolar disorder
Diagnosis
Minor symptoms of mania
(Not at a diagnostic level)
Family
history

20. Creativity
Creative
accomplishment
and fame
Engagement in
creative occupation
Creative
thought: divergent
thinking

21. Study Sample Rates of mania
Ludwig, 1992 1005 recognized artists,
writers, actors
8.2% had some history
of mania, compared to
2.8% of non-artists
Wills, 2003 40 famous Jazz Bepop
musicians
28.5% some form of
mood disorder
Czeizel, 2001 Famous Hungarian
poets
67.5% had some form of
bipolar disorder
Jamison, 1989 47 British 18th century
writers
26% elated moods, 6.5%
treated for mania
Juda, 1994 113 highly creative
artists
No diagnosable bipolar
disorder, but 22% of
offspring had bipolar
spectrum traits
Biographical studies of famous artists
Problem: biographies may be biased…

22. Highly prestigious writers’ workshop
43% met criteria for some form of mania:
• 30% bipolar II disorder
• 13% bipolar I disorder
Iowa Writers Workshop (Andreasen)
Problem:
Fame might relate to strengths other than creativity.
Bipolar disorder relates to creative fame

23. Akiskal (2005) Artists and those in non-
artistic occupations
43% of artists endorsed
cyclothymic traits,
compared to about 10%
of controls
Colvin (1995) 40 conservatory
students; 40 students in
non-creative areas
GBI mania and
cyclothymia scores were
higher among the
conservatory students
Studies of artistic samples
What about samples that aren’t famous or eminent?

24. DOES THIS HOLD UP IN THE
GENERAL POPULATION?

25. Aims:
Is creativity tied to psychopathology
among family members?
Methods:
• Swedish population registries of
mental health treatment and
occupation
• 54,042 people with schizophrenia
29,644 with bipolar disorder
• 217,771 with unipolar depression
• Family members of the patients
Creativity and mental disorder: family study of
300,000 people with severe mental disorder

26. Findings:
• Individuals with bipolar disorder and healthy siblings of people with
schizophrenia or bipolar disorder overrepresented in creative
professions
• People with schizophrenia had no increased rate of overall creative
professions compared with controls
• Neither individuals with unipolar depression nor their siblings differed
from controls regarding creative professions
Creativity and mental disorder: family study of
300,000 people with severe mental disorder

27. Creativity and mental disorder: family study of
300,000 people with severe mental disorder
schizophrenia
Bipolar disorder
Unipolar depression

28. Aims:
(1) Consider family and personal history
(2) Distinguish being an author versus
other creative occupations
Method:
• In Sweden, extensive records
available for personal and family
mental health treatment.
• 1,173,763 Swedish adults
Mental illness, suicide and creativity:
40-Year prospective total population study

29. Personal History:
Authors had higher rates of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, unipolar
depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and suicide than did those
in non-creative professions.
Bipolar disorder, but not other disorders, related to greater likelihood of
being in other creative occupations.
Family History:
• First-degree family members of patients with schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder, anorexia nervosa were more likely to be in creative
occupations.
Mental illness, suicide and creativity:
40-Year prospective total population study

30. Mental illness, suicide
and creativity:
40-Year prospective
total population study
Kyaga,S. , Landén, M., Boman, M., Hultman, C.,
Långström, N., Lichtenstein, P. (2013). Mental illness,
suicide and creativity: 40-Year prospective total
population study. Journal of Psychiatric Research,
47(1), 83-90.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2012.09.010.

31. Among people in
creative occupations,
bipolar disorder and
family history of bipolar
disorder are more
common.
This may be unique to
bipolar disorder.
Conclusion 2:

32. Even if artists have a higher
likelihood of bipolar qualities,
many with bipolar disorder might
not be creative.
Among those with bipolar disorder,
how many are creative?
A different sampling approach

33. Tremblay et al. (2010) 13,700 participants in
the ECA study (84 with
DSM-IIIR diagnosis of
bipolar I disorder)
Creativity ratings of
occupations were higher
among those with
bipolar disorder (4.54)
than those without
bipolar disorder (3.07)
Among those with bipolar disorder,
how common is it to be an artist?
Bipolar disorder relates to creative occupations
Problem: People might choose occupations that
allow for less structure or fit their personality.
But are people really more creative? What about
the level of creative accomplishment?

34. Lifetime accomplishment
(Richards et al, 1988)

35. Creative accomplishment is
enhanced among those with
milder forms of bipolar
disorder,
but not among those with
severe forms.
Carrie McGrath
Conclusion 3:

36. Study Sample Findings
Furnham et al. (1988) Students at risk for mania +
Schuldberg, 2001 Students at risk for mania +
Shapiro & Weisberg, 1999 Students at risk for mania +
Frantom et al., 1999 Risk for mania among
graduate students and
faculty studying art
No effect
Frantom et al., 1999,
second analysis
Family history of mania +
Santosa et al., 2007 People diagnosed with
bipolar disorder
No effect
Self-Ratings of Creativity

37. Those with
milder forms of
bipolar disorder
see themselves
as creative.
Conclusion 4:

38. Creativity paradigm Bipolar I
disorder
Bipolar
spectrum
Family
members
Risk for
mania
Biographical studies of
eminence
+ + +
Interview studies of famous
creative persons
+ + +
Occupational choice + + + +
Creative accomplishment - + +
Self-rated creativity - +
Creative persons?
People with bipolar disorder are to be likely to be creative.
Particularly true for milder and at-risk variants.

39. What advantages of bipolar disorder fuel creativity?

40. Study Sample Findings Score
Card
Furnham et al.,
2008
Students at risk for
mania
Higher scores on the
Unusual Uses Test
+
Santosa et al.,
2007
Adults diagnosed
with bipolar
disorder
No differences from controls
on the Torrance verbal or
nonverbal creativity subtests
-
Johnson et al.
(2015)
Adults diagnosed
with bipolar I
disorder
No advantages on standard
measures of divergent
thinking
-
Measures of Divergent Thinking

41. Creative (divergent) thinking is observed in those
at risk for the disorder, but not within bipolar I
disorder– at least without considering mood.
Conclusion:

42. • In interviews with eminent artists and in
undergraduates who varied in creativity and manic
risk
• enthusiasm, energy, and less need for sleep
related to level of creativity
• other symptoms did not
• Jamison (1989)
• Shapiro & Weisberg (1999)
Could mild mood changes be more beneficial?

43. Aims:
(1) To evaluate whether ambition is
related to creativity among those with
bipolar spectrum conditions.
Methods:
• Examined correlations between a
validated self-report measure of
ambition (the WASSUP) and creativity.
• Study 1: Individuals with BD who self-
identified as highly creative (n=22)
completed the WASSUP and a measure
of lifetime creative accomplishment.
• Study 2: Undergraduates (n=221)
completed the WASSUP, a measure of
mania risk and a measure designed to
assess creativity in business projects
and tasks.
Creativity and ambition

44. Findings:
Study 1 (artistic bipolar sample):
• Ambition (WASSUP scores) was high in bipolar disorder.
• Ambition was correlated with lifetime creative accomplishment.
Study 2 (undergraduates, correlations within mania risk and creativity):
Mania risk was related to greater ambition and creativity
Ambition was also directly related to greater creativity.
Conclusion:
• Ambition could be one important part of creative success
across the bipolar spectrum.
Johnson , S., Murray, G., Hou, S., Staudenmaier, P., Freeman, M., Michalak, E., CREST.BD. (2015).
Creativity is linked to ambition across the bipolar spectrum. Journal of Affective Disorders, 178, 160-164.
doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2015.02.02
Creativity and ambition

45. Aim:
Investigate how
highly creative
individuals with BD
understand role of
symptoms and
treatment in their
creativity, and
possible
mechanisms
underpinning this
link
Creativity and Bipolar Disorder: Igniting a Dialogue

46. Methods
22 participants, 50% BD
type I, 50% BD type
II/NOS, mean age 42.7
years, 17 women, 5 men
Quantitative data
collected
Divided into four focus
groups, 1.5 hours
Tape recorded, thematic
analysis
How does BD enhance/add to creativity?
Do different mood states have different impacts on
your creativity?
How does creativity relate to treatment?
Do BD medications help or hinder creativity?
Are there ways of tailoring treatments for BD that
could help you express your creativity?

47. Results
Five themes identified:
1. Pros and cons of mania for creativity
2. Benefits of altered thinking
3. Relationship between creativity and medication
4. Creativity as central to one's identity
5. Creativity's importance in stigma reduction and treatment
Johnson , S., Moezpoor, M., Murray, G., Hole, R., Barnes, S., CREST.BD, Michalak, E. (2015). Creativity and
bipolar disorder: Igniting a dialogue. Qualitative Health Research. DOI: 10.1177/1049732315578403
Creativity and Bipolar Disorder: Igniting a Dialogue

48. • Substantial evidence: bipolar disorder is related to
being a “creative person”
• Particularly true of milder forms of bipolar disorder,
and even vulnerability to the disorder
Summary

49. • Less is known about the “creative process” that
supports this pattern
• Some early evidence suggests that mood plays a role
• Happiness might bolster fluency and divergent
thinking
• Moods that are too high might interfere with
creative accomplishments
• This dovetails with findings in the quantitative
literature– more severe mania history may interfere
with creative outcomes, while good moods may help.
Summary

50. Acknowledgments

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