The paper shows a link between artistic engagement and the genes underlying schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
How Is Creativity Differentially Related to Schizophrenia and Autism?
The paper shows a link between artistic engagement and the genes underlying schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
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This article reminded me of an English artist named Louis Wain who drew portraits of cats while developing schizophrenia. His renditions of the cats he painted became increasingly patterned and psychedelic as his schizophrenia progressed. This connects to the idea in the article that pointed out those who exhibit schizophrenic symptoms tend to recognize and make sense of patterns that don't really exist. Another U.K. based artist named William Utermohlen drew a series of self portraits over the course of 5-years while developing Alzheimer's disease and the results were heart wrenching to look at. His self portraits start off fully rendered and detailed but eventually derails into a unrecognizable state. It's really intriguing how mental illness and the possible connections found between creativity and being on the spectrum can impact your art work. I'm not saying it will make your artwork more complex or better, but it definitely has an effect that can't really be achieved in any other way.
Oftentimes, the concept of schizophrenia gets me all kinds of concerned. How can we really know when our inner voice crosses the line from running dialogue to malicious suggestion? Now, that isn't to say that shiczophrenics can't function, in most cases it's quite the opposite. Their art often creates a vision of decay, with early work being very structured and work from further in life being more and more warped until the results are completely nightmarish. However, creativity in the context of mental disorder has established an interesting paradigm in today's culture. The article explains a genetic link, a very acute genetic link, between schizophrenia and aptitude to music and art. The author frequently clarifies that being artistic does not make you schizophrenic, it only means that you have a (mildly) greater chance of embracing your artistic side than people without the same genetic background. Problems that rise from this is the thought that illness will make you more artistic, which is patently false. Don't wish for schizophrenia just to improve your painting skills. The life they lead, often times they wish they'd have been born with no talent at all. Love your life just the way it is while you have it.
Living with a mental illness, of any kind, alters the way you see the world. When you view the world from a strange angle, you might have difficulty expressing your views and emotions in just words, so you turn to art. We also often associate suffering with great artist's work, and people who suffer from mental illnesses are fighting a battle with themselves every day of their lives. So when this article points out a real genetic link between mental illness and creativity, it is not so much a shocking discovery as confirming something we have long suspected. As the article pointed out, the old cliche of the thin line between madness and genius. But as Jacob said, "Don't wish for schizophrenia just to improve your painting skills." Living with an illness like schizophrenia is not something you should ever want, or wish for, even jokingly, because it overshadows your life everyday and makes even the little things an up hill battle. People with mental illness turn to art because it can be therapeutic and lets them escape their own heads for a short while, not because they think they might have some small advantage.
There are a lot of people in the world and there are even more buried in cemeteries along the way. So when we as artists are tasked with creating something new it’s no wonder more than a few of the greatest artists have been a little crazy, a little different from most of the people around them. Even within my limited experience it’s often enlightening to me to see how different two people’s interpretations of the same experience can be. Many artistic people are drawn to these fields because their talent for seeing something differently can be appreciated through their art. The correlation then as small as it may be makes a little sense to me that in addition to being a little different in how we might view the world our minds might function ever so slightly differently in a way that may manifest itself as a mental illness later in life.
I think one of the best points the author makes in this article is the note that despite all scientific research, creative people with autistic and schizophrenic traits which are not linked to creativity still exist and can still thrive. One of my best friends, an incredibly talented actress who I've watched take on starring role after starring role and move on from a performing and visual arts high school to study musical theatre, is autistic. And when did I find this out? I learned this little tid-bit of information after four years of friendship while sitting in the car one day in Houston med-center traffic with my mother, who had learned of this from my friend's mother. One might expect me to be angry at my friend for not mentioning such a vital part of her artistic struggle to me; on the contrary, I couldn't have been more proud of her. I knew my friend had in the past struggled with a disorder called echolalia (which causes young children to meaninglessly repeat back the words adults say to them until learning to speak on their own becomes pointless), but never had I known her to be anywhere on the autism spectrum. Sure, maybe she could be a little less than empathetic sometimes. Maybe I had seen her struggle to relate to people and their emotions. And yeah, she had trouble learning in classes like history and English which required a high intake of detailed information. But I had also seen her struggle with these things decrease as over the four years I'd known her. She'd come to portray amazing characters, impress teachers in class discussions, nail exams, make new strides, gain new skills, and do nothing but grow. As a fellow artist and as a friend, I honestly couldn't have been more shocked to learn of her situation. She was and still is the type of friend who inspires others to take each day at a time and to look at every new dawn as an opportunity to grow. Knowing what she has been through now inspires me even more. I think that in this way there is a link between her non-artistically inclined autistic characteristics and her ability as a performer: the things she has been through have driven her to look autism in the face and smile - I mean full out curtsy, jazz hands, and all. For this reason, she is truly an artist, no matter where she lands on the spectrum. Bravo to this author for acknowledging that people like her can not only exist, but can live their lives to the fullest.
Although this article had some good points, I want to address an overarching issue associated with the subject of the article. A couple of years ago, I was watching "the night of too many stars" which is a star-studded fundraising event to support Autism Speaks. The event itself is amazing and garners so many donations to such an amazing cause, but one part of the event bugged me. There was a performance done by a girl with autism alongside Katy Perry. It was a lovely performance, but it perpetuated something that bothers me about the perception of people with Autism. The biggest thing being the media attention on savants, which are only a subset of the full population of people with Autism. Savants are people with Autism who have a particularly amazing and somewhat superhuman memory which allows them to function beyond the capabilities of a neurotypical person. They are often the only subgroup that gets media attention, and this gives the public a skewed perception of the true nature of Autism. It also gets highly associated with creativity; hence the subject of this article. There are so many people dealing with Autism who are not lucky enough to have these special abilities, and these people get little to no attention because they are not "interesting" to the public. So go ahead, support the child with Autism who can recite pi to the 3000th digit, or the child who can play Beethoven at age 3, that's perfectly fine, just be aware that that isn't what Autism is. It's much less poetic than that.
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