Creativity Linked to Bipolar Disorder & Schizophrenia, New Study Suggests

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People who flourish in creative fields i.e. painting, music, writing, and dance, are more prone to suffer from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, according to a new study.

Creative people like painters, writers, dancers and musicians are more likely to suffer from a mental illness by 25 percent compared to people in other fields, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Study researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at London's King's College analyzed medical information of 86,000 Iceland citizens to find genetic variations that increase the predisposition to developing schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

They found that creative people are 17 percent more likely to have the genetic vulnerability than other Icelanders working in other fields, according to LA Times.

The data was then compared to an even larger database in the Netherlands and Sweden. The researchers then found that 35,000 of those who were creative professionals were 25 percent more likely to carry the gene that links creativity to mental illness.

Kari Stefansson, founder and CEO of Iceland's DeCODE Project, said the research shows some connection between creativity and mental illness.

"To be creative, you have to think differently," he told The Guardian. "And when we are different, we have a tendency to be labelled strange, crazy and even insane."

Stefansson noted that the amount of genetic variants can increase the likelihood of developing schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and because of this, an individual's thought process is affected but it is relatively harmless. However, for the 1 percent of the population, it can result to problems and diagnosis of mental illness.

"Often, when people are creating something new, they end up straddling between sanity and insanity," he said. "I think these results support the old concept of the mad genius. Creativity is a quality that has given us Mozart, Bach, Van Gogh. It's a quality that is very important for our society. But it comes at a risk to the individual, and 1% of the population pays the price for it."

Nonetheless, Stefansson admits that there is only little proof of the association of mental illness to creativity.

Some have expressed their doubts and arguments about the study. According to Arielle Duhaime-Ross, a science writer from The Verge: "There's another issue to consider. For this 13-foot-long association to matter, you have to have a pretty good definition of creativity - something that psychologist Judith Shlesinger, author of The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius, argues is missing from the study."

Duhaime-Ross argues that using a person's profession as a measure of creativity is not sufficient. She explains that programmers are creative due to the nature of their work, but their profession isn't considered creative.

"If there is a link between creativity and psychosis - it's entirely possible that one exists - we probably won't be able to find it by looking at a person's job. And, as far as the genetics go, we may want to find means of predicting schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that can account for more than 13 feet in a creative mile," she added.