{Creativity and Mental Disease}[13th December 1987]

[Redbook4:218-219][19871213:1230]{Creativity and Mental Disease}[13th December 1987]

19871213.1230

T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] 19871211-17 [Extract from cutting inserted in ms:]

'In the category of industry and initiative in telling us what we already suspected, a small prize to Nancy C. Andreasen. The October issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry contains her findings on the evergreen subject of genius and insanity. Ms. Andreasen studied thirty writers from the visiting faculty of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and compared them with a control group of non-literary professionals matched for IQ, age, sex and class [...]. The study employed modern diagnostic procedures and focused also on the parents and siblings of both groups. The findings showed no link between creativity and schizophrenia, but found noticeably higher rates of mental illness among writers' families, and monitored two suicides among the writers themselves during the survey. The scribblers were four times as likely to be alcoholics. ”[....]'*

This also fits the statistical results showing birthdates significantly correlated to some occupations, and to schizophrenia (I can't find the cuttings at present, although I'm sure I have seen them here at [CH]: did I stick them in the[se] Journal[s]?***): although 30 is scarcely a statistical sample. The linking of creativity to mental illness, suicide and alcoholism is borne out by**** Qualities and attributes at J~,# i.e. Creation, Gluttony, Fragmentation, and the statistical correlation with Anxiety (and Artists, of course).

It does help to confirm the resolution of one long-standing problem: where is writing{? –}#* The answer, I think, is that writing, as a means of communication, may be anywhere; but creative (or imaginative) writing is at J~, with the creative artists.#**

*cf. Anthony Ryle, reviewing A. Storr, 'The School of Genius', Deutsch: '… The only statistical finding in the book, reporting that writers participating in the 1974 University of Iowa writers' workshop hd a significantly higher incidence of depression than did control subjects; presumably not all of these were geniuses.' (T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] August 5-11 1988, p852). <880805>

**cf [[Redbook4:236-237][19871219:0105b]{Occupational Disease (1)}[19th December 1987]ff] 237-8, which does not exactly fit this correspondence [of occupation and disease]: except that these are mental diseases (or behaviours) (immediate effects?) and those are physical diseases (delayed effect?). <880307>

***No – they are with Net background notes – I may re-file them in Journal II.[[Redbook2:133][19780831:2240]{Narrative Dreams}[31st August 1978]?/ff?] 133√ and II.[ref [Redbook2:372[19850923:0048c]{The Man Made of Glass}[23rd September 1985] fn?] 373√ {Now in II []} (refiled 871213).

****[= consistent with?]

#cf. [[Redbook4:144-145][19871020:2058b]{Angelic Hierarchies [continued (20)]}[20th October 1987]] 145.

#*<891003>

#**{Modified later to G~}

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