Creativity from Mania: A Critical Look at the Stereotype of a 'Mad Genius' and an Analysis of it's Potential Grounding in Bipolar Disorder

The stereotype of the mad genius is given a great deal of credence from the lengthy list of famous artists, writers, poets and musicians said to have suffered with one form or another of psychosis. Walk onto any art campus and you will see flamboyancy and eccentricities pointing to the same. Despite associations with madness in general, the majority of creative professionals who are said to be psychotic suffer with bipolar disorder- sometimes known as manic depression. What this essay does is to look more closely not just at the similarities between creativity and bipolar disorder, but at the thought processes involved in the two, and what it is about the illness that seems to give the sufferer a better and more profound ability to create. By means of word association tests I have attempted to track trains of thought in bipolar sufferers and creative people in comparison to those who consider themselves to have no creative agility, This will provide a better understanding of what it is that goes on during a manic episode which gives the sufferer such an increased level of creativity, or if in fact it does nothing of the sort.