Creativity and Madness: New Findings and Old Stereotypes

Intrigued by history's list of "troubled geniuses,"Albert Rothenberg investigates how two such opposite conditions-outstanding creativity and psychosis-could coexist in the same individual. Rothenberg concludes that high-level creativity transcends the usual modes of logical thought-and may even superficially resemble psychosis. But he also discovers that all types of creative thinking generally occur in a rational and conscious frame of mind, not in a mystically altered or transformed state. Far from being the source-or the price-of creativity, Rothenberg discovers, psychosis and other forms of mental illness are actually hindrances to creative work. Disturbed writers and absent-minded professors make great characters in fiction, but Rothenberg has uncovered an even better story-the virtually infinite creative potential of healthy human beings.