Have you ever found a reason to envy painters, writers, musicians, and people who can create something from nothing? If you are not one, at least a single reason why you don’t have to envy them anymore is that creativity has a raises the risk of Schizophrenia by as much as 90%.
That is according to a research finding which was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. According to the work, which opens a larger hole in the argument that continues on the link between creativity and mental illness, Lead author of the research James McCabe stated that the problem with creativity is that it has to do with inking ideas and concepts in the way that many people would not think, and that is what happens with people who are delusional.
What makes this research work rather interesting is that there have been many other research works that have tried to answer thing question that has sustained for a very long time.
Facts to know on how being creative raises risk of schizophrenia
1. Creativity and Delusion
Just as there is a very thin line between geniuses and madmen, so too there is a thin line between creativity and being delusional. Or that is what the research work is trying to make you see. The thing is that because creative people don’t get to think in the same way that their noncreative counterparts would think, they fall in the same line or close to with people that are delusional.
2. Some creative people that have suffered from
According to Greek philosopher Plato, creativity most times is akin to divine madness, and Aristotle insists that there is no great genius without some touch of madness, while Marilyn Monroe said madness is genius.
Even though those are just some of the things said by some highly creative people, definitely among the best, there are many that have gone suffered various forms of mental crises. Among the long list of creative people that suffered mental illness are van Gogh, Beethoven, Darwin, Plath, Salvador Dalí, and Edvard Munch. Others are Virginia Woolf, Robert Schumann, and Robert Lowell.
3. Past Research Works
There have been many works in the past that have suggested that there is a link between creativity and bipolar disease. In a research work that was published in 2015, it was found that there is a genetic link between creativity and mental illness, and hence, it showed that by 25%, creative people are at a greater risk of carrying genes with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The research which was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, argued that for you to be considered creative, you have to think in a different way from the conventional people, and that is what makes strange, crazy, and insane people what they are.
Another study which was carried out in 2012 has shown the same results. According to the research which took a look at close to 1.2 million people struggling with mental problems, it reached that most of them have been found to be in the creative industry than anywhere else.
Still farther back, there was a research work in 2010 that showed that following brain scans, it was seen that the thought pathways of people with schizophrenia and very creative people.
4. Reasons behind the finding
The reasons behind the finding are still missing, but there are those that suggest that because creative people tend to think deeper and find meanings and explanations to things, the more likely they are to get emotionally unstable and even depressed.
More so, James McCabe pointed out that it could as well be that the genetics that champion creativity may also carry the cloud of mental health as such the two get to mostly come together. These, however, still remain as mere speculations until a research work proves it.
One more reason that was given is that creative people see the world differently. “It’s like looking at a shattered mirror, they see the world in a fractured way,” Mark Millard who is a psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society stated.
A creative person thinking in the opposite direction from all other people
