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Images in Space, by Sara Deegan

Images in Space by Sara Deegan

Scientists have charted the heavens for millennia. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is a composite image made of data collected over a four-month period by the Hubble Space Telescope, a 2.4 meter reflecting tele that orbits beyond the earth’s atmosphere–10,000 galaxies–some as far as 10 billion light years away–captured in a single portrait. Hubble has enabled scientists to see farther into space–and further back in time.

The large synoptic telescope LSST, 8.4-meter diameter collecting area and 3.2 gig pixel digital camera mapped the sky in Cerro Pachon, Chile. For over ten years, once a week these telescopes captured images in the sky in order to detect moving objects, discover variable and transient bodies–which could then provide a comprehensive survey of the visible universe. The composite images resemble bright diamonds against a black drop, random specks of splattered paint on canvas made with a deliberate paint brush; an avant-garde, post-modern, abstract, microscopic-mesh of molecules more intricate than Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Richard Misrach’s image of Capella and Polaris over Slab City resemble the blue ocean’s rippled waves. For years, physicists used the Wolf-Palisa Sternkarton, a tool for mapping the heavens through a collection of grids/graphs/dots/plots/geometrical charts. Picture maps of the moon. Telescopes depict the practice of drawing or constructing a composite of a planet from multiple observations. The various views of Uranus in 1986 show two different views of Uranus’s pole of rotation–color exaggerating the atmosphere variation at the pole: pigmented cosmic particles, a surrealist Dali–morphing; dripping; fluid-like.

The next generation of telescopes are currently being developed. We may be able to see back to the origins of time, or detect signs of other life; each granule a relic of millions of years of shattering impacts, moon dust clinging to space suits and instruments, impossible to remove.

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A Psychoanalytical Study of Shakespeare’s Sister: The Myth of Women and Madness

A Psychoanalytical Study of Shakespeare’s Sister

By Sara Deegan

The subtext of women and hysteria often overshadows the scientific study of mental illness and stigmatizes mental health patients seeking treatment, yet claims the vast majority of the uncertainties plaguing psychology today. However, genetic research compels societal progression through improved treatment options for patients, certain psychoanalysts refute bipolar disorder as a psychiatric condition, discourage genetic research by portraying it as a cultural myth and gender construction, and frame Woolf’s depression in terms of Freudian Oedipal and pre-Oedipal complexes, symbolizing a posthumous paradigm of the feminine archetype in male-authored psychohistory. I contend that Virginia Woolf suffered from manic depression, a neurological disorder, by juxtaposing scientific inquiries in the genre of mental health and the myth of Ophelia and madness.

Psychoanalytic history suggests Woolf’s feelings of female impotence explain her desire to write, in order to penetrate the masculine sphere, and series of psychotic breakdowns. According to the Freudian model, the female artist manifests as the mad woman, i.e. Ophelia, but never as the creative genius, i.e. Hamlet. Woolf asserts, “It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare” (A Room of One’s Own, “Shakespeare’s Sister”, 39).  Likewise, Ophelia’s death conveys a historical and cultural narrative of women and the myth of madness.

Traditionally, Freudian thinking is the unspoken values and unconscious assumptions that fortify common cultural stereotypes about the creative woman (Caramagno, Flight of the Mind, 8). Are Oedipal and pre-Oedipal Freudian interpretations of pathology relevant to modern scientific inquiries? Caramagno argues that Woolf’s “supposed flight from sex, or her morbid preoccupation with death--all the favorite Freudian themes which, not coincidentally, sustain sexist assumptions about the nature of the creative woman” (2). Whereas, psychoanalytical interpretations of Woolf’s illness hinder our scientific understanding of the brain, perpetuate myths about psychiatric disorders, and serve to undermine the creative woman, psychobiographer Caramagno asserts that Woolf is not a great artist because she was a neurotic. Caramagno declares that these “sexist accusations” portray the creative woman as “damaged,” “fragile,” and “oppressed” like a “wingless bird” (Flight of the Mind, 8). Caramagno encourages a scientific study of the brain for explanations of mental illness rather than speculation and psychoanalysis. He argues that Woolf did not suffer against a “twisted desire to remain ill,” but, a neurological condition: “Neuroscience tells us some very disturbing things about how complicated and problematic it is to ascribe meaning to events” (2). While geneticists investigate a deeper comprehension of how the brain and environment function together, psychoanalyst Ussher concludes that psychosis is a subjective label of deviance, thereby limiting etiology and our scientific understanding of the brain.

Ophelia’s madness, biologically preordained, inevitably results in her submissive passage into passive insanity and subsequent death. Ophelia serves to illustrate what little we know about how the brain system operates.  This image is an accurate portrayal of a woman restrained by misogyny. Ophelia manifests as the feminine archetype in an oppressive culture as a gender stereotype. The madwoman, a powerful figure, rebels against patriarchal norms and becomes of a transgender nature, i.e. the “monstrous feminine” (Ussher, The Madness of Women, 153). Ussher argues that “hysteria” stems, metaphorically, from a woman’s reproductive organs (153). Hysteria, once a common medical diagnosis, affects many women in the context of their lives (153). And a hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus. Showalter argues in “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism,” because our interpretation of Ophelia depends upon our cultural attitudes, if we view Ophelia as a figure of femininity in a patriarchal culture, i.e. the “object of Hamlet’s male desire,” than her story serves as psychoanalytical criticism of femininity. Ophelia represents the “cultural links between femininity, female sexuality, insanity and representation” (1). For instance, Ophelia proclaims to think nothing. Showalter argues that nothing, in a patriarchal society, equates female sexuality (2). Hamlet responds: “That is a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.” Ophelia states, “what is, my lord?” Hamlet retorts, “nothing” (3.2.111). Ophelia thinks nothing in her brain because nothing lies between her legs—Hamlet draws a derogatory portrait of Ophelia as a castrated man, or eunuch. Ophelia acts in the play only as a catalyst for Hamlet. She does not possess her own free will (pun intended). French psychoanalyst Lucelrigaray proclaims that female sex organs “represent the horror of having nothing to see” (Showalter, Representing Ophelia, 2). Even Ophelia’s name possesses phallic symbolism, or lack thereof. The “O” symbolizes nothing; zero (2). Similarly, the madwoman is almost never portrayed as intelligent. In “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Woolf notes, “It is unthinkable that any woman in Shakespeare’s day should have had Shakespeare’s genius” (41). Also, Showalter notes that Hamlet, the “melancholy hero’s...intellectual and imaginative genius curiously bypassed women” (Representing Ophelia, 4).

In Elizabethan drama, disheveled hair symbolizes rape. Ophelia hastily deflowers herself, drowns, and then vanquishes from her despair, prettily adorned with blossoms in her hair, and dressed all in white. Showalter reveals that the myth of “Ophelia had begun to infiltrate reality, to define a style for mad young woman seeking to express and communicate their distress” (Representing Ophelia, 4).  Shakespeare’s metaphor of the repressed Ophelia frames women and madness in the context of cultural perspectives. Woolf speculates, “Yet genius of a sort must have existed among women...but certainly it never got itself onto paper,” (41). Similar to Ophelia, Woolf’s suicide by drowning symbolizes the feminine archetype’s desperate return to the womb.

Psychoanalyst J. Ussher insists that mental illness likely results from discontent in the context of a woman’s life and scrutinizes biochemistry as a possible theory for internal pathology. Female madness is a societal construction, devised by a patriarchal culture, designed to discipline women that deviate from the gender norm. Ussher clarifies, “madness” as a “gendered experience” (The Madness of Women, 12). Ussher excludes the possibility of a biochemical or neurological disorder (14). Furthermore, Ussher assumes that a woman suffering from a mental disorder likely experienced sexual abuse, violence and oppression (12).  Equal numbers of men and women suffer from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia (Kay Redfield Jamison, Manic Depressive Illness and Creativity, 45). Yet, the social stigma affects more women than men. Ussher trivializes mental illness in women, and offers no explanation for the occurrence of mental illness found in men. She explains that psychosis is a psychosomatic response to an oppressive or restrictive patriarchal system, dismisses verifiable evidence and research about the effects of genetics on neurological disorders, and then offers an obsolete psychoanalytic history of hysteria and women instead: “We [women] signal our psychic pain, our deep distress, through culturally sanctioned symptoms, which allows our distress to be positioned as real” (The Madness of Women, 9). Meanwhile, psychologist Karl Jaspers speculates that manic depression is a complete fabrication: “From time to time in psychiatry, there emerge diseases which constantly enlarge themselves until they perish from their own magnitude” (Jane Ussher, The Madness of Women, 51). However, researcher Francis Mondimore argues that mania and depression date all the way back to the ancient Greeks recorded by Soranos of Ephedrus, a physician in Rome in 98-177 A.D. (Kraepelin and Manic Depressive Insanity, 49). In 1801 Pinel argues that mania is a periodic condition, occurs cyclically, and insists on humane treatments for patients (49). Kraepelin’s work on manic depression and mental illness in the mid to late 1900’s composes most of our modern diagnostic system of psychiatry (51). By 1971, Kraepelin describes modern day diagnoses of mania and melancholia characterized by periodic insanity (50). However, Ussher claims that ‘madness’ is defined by female deviant behavior such as aggression, violence, promiscuity, insomnia, depression, exhaustion, anxiety, etc. within a cultural context (The Madness of Women, 4). Therefore, no woman is immune to the ascription of pathology.

Usher argues the cases of individuals misdiagnosed with a psychiatric condition due to a repressive cultural context or “arrogant physician.” All psychiatric illnesses should be treated alike and stem from similar cause, i.e. trauma: “women diagnosed as hysterics in the nineteenth century might have experienced distress...in response to an oppressive social...context…violence and sexual abuse, so might the women diagnosed with depression, PMDD, BPD or PTSD today” (11). Regardless, a leading cause of misdiagnosis is our “imprecise use of scientific language” and “misapplication of labels” to people that may or may not be sick (Flint and Kendler, The Genetics of Major Depression, 493). Ussher uses words like “mania” and “anxiety” interchangeably. The author paints a portrait of the mad woman as “damaged” and “frail” in response to patriarchal oppression. The author states, “women’s madness is both a myth--[and] a culturally constructed label for distress or deviance” (14). Mad women deviate from the patriarchy. Ussher explores why women choose to become mad: “I not only challenge the legitimacy of these ‘disorders’ as objective diagnostic categories, but also explore how and why women come to experience distress and then see themselves as mad” (7). The author perpetuates the social stigma of mental illness by attributing hysteria to a historical and cultural fabrication. Ussher claims that madness is merely a woman’s psychosomatic reaction to deeply embedded psychological issues, cultural myths, and patriarchal oppression.

Whereas psychoanalyst Ussher fails to define mania, psychoanalyst Bond attributes mania to psychosexual development and repressed anger (Who Killed Virginia Woolf, 22). Bond admits that “manic depression has an inherited, probably metabolic structure, refers to family genealogy,” and then searches for an “inherently psychoanalytical root” to Woolf’s illness (23). Bond reveals that even Freud applied “two short references to mania in his entire work.” Bond draws a comparison between childhood sexual development to manic states, depicting Woolf as a child in desperate need of her mother’s approval (22). Bond proclaims, “many of her major novels ended with Woolf entering a psychotic episode” (37). Bond’s conjecture serves only to undermine the creative woman.

A psychoanalytical interpretation of bipolar disorder, or manic depression, overlooks or simplifies scientific explanations. For example, British psychiatrist, Henry Maudsley, defines mental illness in terms of social conditioning as a woman’s response to limited upward mobility in a social structure (Ussher, The Madness of Women, 23). Yet, more women possess a greater opportunity for social and career advancement today than ever before. Caramagno explains that the Freudian “psychological model...is no longer relevant to her [Woolf’s] illness” (Flight of the Mind, 17).  Manic depressive illness accounts for Virginia Woolf’s madness. In 1925, Leonard Woolf, Virginia’s husband, declared, “As far as symptoms were concerned, Virginia was suffering from manic depressive insanity” (Caramagno, Flight of the Mind, 17).  Psychoanalysts Ussher and Bond attribute Woolf’s insanity to childhood trauma, but Caramagno attests that the “biological realities of manic depressive illness limit the critics freedom to tie events in Woolf’s life to symptoms that seem metaphorically similar” (8). Caramagno describes a neurological structure instead: “Woolf learned important object-relations lessons from her psychotic breakdowns...she used this knowledge creatively in her theories about fiction, mental functioning and self-structure” (3). Caramagno argues that manic depression is not a psychosomatic response to repressed childhood sexuality (7). Caramagno attests that “biology lifts from Woolf’s shoulders the derogatory weight of responsibility for her illness” (2). Caramagno points to critics that oversimplify etiology and fail to recognize “different types of depression;” although any individual can become depressed, Woolf fits the manic depressive paradigm (8). Caramagno criticizes the outdated Freudian model that attributes psychosis to unresolved neuroses or deep psychological issues that a person is either consciously or unconsciously unwilling to resolve (2).

Xu et al conducted an unbiased genome wide study on bipolar disorder by devised case control samples using a set of 2155 genes; the researchers point to “several genes of interest that support...findings for bipolar disorder” (Genome-Wide Association Study of Bipolar, 1). The authors of the genome study highlight a discord in the scientific community as to identifying the cause of mental illnesses. Determining gene moderation of environmental risk factors for a mental disorder, Flint and Kendler contest, “for most of the 20th century, the focus was on ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’...now it is increasingly recognized that a disorder may reflect genes and environment ‘working together’” (The Genetics of Major Depression, 484). While most geneticists believe that a reaction cannot occur without a “preexisting gene,” behavioral researchers find this a “puzzling claim” (491). Nature and nurture must behave “complimentary.” The answer would benefit society by administering the proper “interventions to the appropriate subjects to prevent the disorder” (493). Therefore, a genetic factor is imperative to determining the etiology of psychiatric disorders (493). Genetic research reveals the complex interaction of environment and genetics.

Historically, hysteria is a woman’s reaction to an oppressive, patriarchal society. However, Woolf applied bold and profound insights to writing fiction as therapeutic value to her mental illness (Caramagno, 3). Woolf did not choose to become manic depressive. The important biological distinction will help to erase the social stigma of mental illnesses. Nonetheless, the cultural myth of madness as a gendered experience continues to misconstrue a serious medical condition, stigmatize the mental health patient, and discourage humane treatment options for the ill, which can prove detrimental to the individual as well as society. Thus, social genetic and developmental psychiatry must collaborate to study the brain’s functioning in order to address the public safety concerns of undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses.

Sources

Bond, Halbert Alma. Who Killed Virginia Woolf: A Psychobiography. Lincoln: iuniverse, inc., 2000 Print.

Caramagno, Thomas C. The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf’s Art and Manic Depressive Illness. 1992. London, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Ltd.,1995. Books Google. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

Flint, Jonathan, Kenneth S. Kendler. “The Genetics of Major Depression.” Neuron 81 (2014): 484-503. Academic Search. Web. 20 April 2014.

Jamison, Kay Redfield. “Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity: Does Some Fine Madness Plague Great Artists? Several Studies Now Show That Creativity and Mood Disorders are Linked.” Scientific American, Inc (1997): 44-49. PBWorks. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

Mondimore, M. Francis. “Kraepelin and Manic-Depressive Insanity: An Historical Perspective.” International Review of Psychiatry 17 (2005): 49-52. Academic Search. Web. 21 April 2014.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Bedford/St. Martin’s Edition. Susanne L. Wofford. Editor. Boston/New York: Bedford Books. 1994.

Showalter, Elaine. “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism.” Shakespearean Criticism Vol. 35. (2007): 77-94. Academic Search. Web. 16 April 2014.

Ussher M. Jane. The Madness of Women: Myth and Experience. New York: Rutledge, 2011. Print.

Wei, Xu, et al. “Genome-wide Association Study of Bipolar Disorder in Canadian and UK Populations Corroborates Disease Loci Including SYNE1 and CSMD1.” BMC Medical Genetics 15:2 (2014): Academic Search. Web. 16 April 2014.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Shakespeare’s Sister. Gutenburg, 1929. Feedbooks. Web. 17 April 2014.

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What Song From Beyoncé’s Lemonade Are You Currently At In Your Break Up? A Quiz.

The recipe:

Note your answers to these questions:

1. What would you do for love?

a. Levitate.

b. Sit alone and beg.

c. Nothing.

2. What’s worse…?

a. Looking jealous?

b. Or crazy?

c. Or like being walked all over lady?

3. Pick a lyric?

a. “True love brought salvation back into me, with every tear came redemption, and my torturer became my remedy.”

b. “Best revenge is your paper.”

c. “He only want me when I’m not there, he better call Becky with the good hair.”

If you answered:

Mostly A’s: Hold Up. They say that we hurt the people we love the most; Lemonade is about love that prevails and grows stronger with time–if all else fails, smash it with a bat named ‘Hot Sauce.’ 

“What’s worse, lookin’ jealous or crazy?/Jealous or crazy?/ Or like being walked all over lately/ walked all over lately/ I’d rather be crazy.“ 

Lemonade describes a love that survives betrayal and disappointment. “Hold up/ They don’t love you like I love you,” Beyoncé bellows. Together we make something sweeter than our individual parts. Beyoncé traces her ancestral history and explores family trauma in order to reclaim her identity as a powerful black woman. If you answered mostly A’s, than you are on the verge of self-actualization--do not waiver on your path.

Mostly B’s: Formation. "I don’t know when love became elusive, no one I know has it.” Lemonade encourages resilience in heartache and disappointment: “I am not broken/ I am not crying.” She sings in “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” (feat) Jack White.

Beyoncé means business: “This is your final warning/  You know I give you life/ If you try this shit again/ You gonna lose your wife.“ Lemonade is a conceptual, visual representation of grief and restoration. Lemonade is about a black woman’s journey of identity and worth, aside from a good wife, mother, or daughter. She can live without man. Yet, only woman can carry man’s lineage. Beyoncé inquires, ”Did he make you forget your own name?“ Lemonade reminds us we all experience heart ache. Even queen Beyoncé. Lemonade is a resurrection of a woman’s love: a conjured antidote to heartbreak from the items found in your kitchen. Beyoncé concludes: ”Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper.“ 

If you answered mostly B’s, than allow yourself to be transformed by a painful experience. To create something sweet from something bitter is the power and alchemy of Lemonade, best served cold by Beyoncé. And the best revenge is not to get even, but your paper. By writing about our experiences, and then transcending experiences, art creates dialogue. I think it is possible to discover that we are not so different, after all. When life serves you lemons, make lemonade. 

Mostly C’s: Sorry. Not sorry. “My daddy warned me about men like you.” If you answered mostly C’s, than something or someone is holding you back from achieving your fullest potential. Perhaps it is time to cut your losses. 

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Mindy Kaling Teaches a Lesson in Harvard Law

“I know a lot about the law. I sue everyone.”

Asked to speak at Harvard Law commencement ceremony, star and creator of her own network television show, The Mindy Project, Kaling declared, “I know a lot about the law. I sue everyone.”

Kaling keenly evokes the ethical dilemma for many lawyers today: “You are entering a profession where no matter how bad the crime, or the criminal, you have to defend the alleged perpetrator. That’s incredible to me.” If life were a Groucho Marx movie, Mindy Kaling would make an incredible professor at Harvard Law.

If Mindy had not become a successful actress, comedian and writer, than she would have made an awesome lawyer. Or, she surely would have made an admirable Harvard professor that promotes justice (and humor) above the law. Kaling jokes: “If you are caught in a lewd act in a public restroom, you are the Harvard law pervert, my friend. And then you represent yourself and you’ll probably get acquitted because you went to Harvard.” Her enthusiasm is contagious.

Mindy speaks her mind: “Elle Woods went here from the trenchant documentary Legally Blond. It’s a very moving film, you should check it out after you read my book.”

Kaling admits that she graduated from Dartmouth and seems a rather unconventional choice for Harvard law, which proves that humor is the answer to all life’s questions.

Mindy lists the ways that she procrastinated writing her speech, addresses her fear of public speaking, and reveals why she agreed to deliver this speech: shameless self promotion. Kaling rose to the challenge and declares: “From an outsiders perspective, here’s the truth. You are all nerds…You are the nerds that are going to make some serious bank, which is why I am here today. To marry the best looking among you.”

You can watch Kaling deliver her speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Y0F0cNLDM

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To Pee Or Not To Pee: It Shouldn’t Be A Question

I never really thought about this issue until…I was publicly shamed for using the “wrong” toilet. 

In a letter signed by the Justice and Education department officials, the Obama administration released a nondiscriminatory and supportive statement on Friday, May 13 declaring that transgender students possess the right to use the school bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. Schools that do not abide by the ruling face loss of federal funding. The letter states: “as is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

One evening, I waited to use the single stall women’s bathroom at a local restaurant; I noticed that nobody was waiting to use the men’s room. Unable to wait any longer, I dodged inside. Suddenly, a man pounded on the locked door and I nearly jumped. “Get out!” He shouted. I started to feel panicky. He declared, “You are not a man.” My heart pounded and I imagined that the whole restaurant could hear him chastising me for using the “wrong” toilet. I wondered if he had been watching me, or wanted to hurt me. Was I in trouble? Had I done something wrong?

I felt ashamed and no longer had the capability to go. By the time I opened the door, the guy had gone back to drinking at the bar with his buddies. I felt harassed for trying to take care of a basic human need. My personal experience helps me to understand how stressful or humiliating it could be when trying to take care of a natural human function.

In a statement released on April 10, 2016, Bruce Springsteen canceled his show in North Carolina in a display of solidarity and support of the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act in response to the state’s backlash. Currently, the Justice Department and North Carolina are engaged in a legal battle regarding state restrictions and access to student bathroom and locker rooms. Springsteen declared that taking a stand for human rights against bigotry and prejudice is more important than a rock show. Furthermore, he noted that “To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.”

John B. King Jr., the secretary of the Department of Education, stated, “We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence.” Federal law is seeking to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex. 

All students deserve the opportunity to learn in a safe, inclusive, and nondiscriminatory environment. It is an important human rights issue that transgender students feel safe and comfortable using school facilities consistent with their gender identities.

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Is There a Genetic Link Between Psychosis and Creativity?

 Sara Jean Deegan

   Researchers have confirmed the correlation between highly creative individuals and psychosis; although psychiatrists strongly believe that there is sufficient evidence to indicate that psychopathology is a genetic, heritable illness directly linked to creativity, evidence suggests that we cannot disregard environmental factors. These five sources examine the link between creativity and psychopathology in order to discern the underlying mechanism.

To investigate the role of genetics, researchers Kyaga et al conducted a case study of 300,000 individuals located in Sweden over the span of thirty years from 1973-2003 in order to test the alleged link between mental illness and creativity. The researchers explained that prior studies relied heavily on biographical sketches, but the alleged link required further examination: “Therefore, we conducted a large population based study of the occurrence of creative occupations among individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and unipolar depression” (374). The researchers examined only the healthy siblings and relatives of those that suffer from mental illnesses (374).

The case study revealed that individuals that suffer from schizophrenia and unipolar depression did not show an increase in creative professions compared to the control group, however bipolar patients were “overrepresented” in the arts and sciences (373).

The researchers collected nation-wide data through mandatory surveys administered to every household in Sweden, and conducted interviews in order to validate the data (375). Bipolar patients and their healthy siblings revealed no indicative correlation with accountants or auditors (376). Notably, the researchers argued that prevalence of creativity decreases with “increasing familial distance to these individuals…these results hence suggest a genetic rather than environmental explanation” (377). Thus, Kyaga highlights that “based on these and other findings of increased creativity in relatives of patients...a genetic basis for the link between creativity and psychopathology has been suggested” (373). Furthermore, Jamison asserts that we can scientifically confirm that highly creative individuals suffer from mental illnesses more than the general population (Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity, 44). 

Psychologist Jamison explores several prominent case studies that explore the genetic link between mental illness and creativity. For example, Richard and colleagues at Harvard University devised a series of creative tests and ranked the results on varying degrees of originality; the researchers discovered that individuals that suffer from manic depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, marked exceedingly higher than the control group (Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity, 46). Ludwig in 1992 conducted a biographical sketch of 1,005 famous artists and writers from the twentieth century in order to prove the vast majority of these figures exhibited symptoms of manic depressive illness, a substantial representation  (46). 

Additionally, Mai contends that those who deny the correlation between manic depression and highly creative individuals contribute to the social stigma of mental illness: “They are implying it is somehow bad to be designated mentally ill, that one might think less highly of the artist and his/her art...or even that he or she is responsible, in some way, for being sick” (The Tortured Artist is Not a Myth, 2). Regardless, Mai argues that there is nothing wrong or bad about suffering from a mental illness (The Tortured Artist is Not a Myth, 2).

Many highly creative individuals such as Ernest Hemingway, Anne Sexton, Vincent Van Gogh and Sylvia Plath suffered from manic depressive illness. Also, Jamison argues that William Blake, Ezra Pound, Lord Byron and “scores of influential 18th and 19th century poets” suffered from severe mood disorders (Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity, 44). Similarly, Caramagno explains that “Woolf learned important object-relations lessons from her psychotic breakdowns...she used this knowledge creatively in her theories about fiction, mental functioning and self-structure” (The Flight of the Mind, 3). Nevertheless, Kyaga et al argues that the genetic link correlates to creativity, but does not account for intelligence. The researchers discovered that despite the prevalent myth of the mad genius that “no significant interaction effects between IQ and creative occupations were found” (Creativity and mental disorder, 377). Therefore, to imply that the connection between psychopathology and creativity is solely genetics oversimplifies mental illness and discredits individuality (Jamison, Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity, 45). Jamison explains that “to assume, then, that such diseases promote artistic talent wrongly reinforces simplistic notion of the ‘mad genius” (45). Furthermore, Jamison notes that such an assumption trivializes and romanticizes a very serious mental condition. Jamison urges the medical community, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists to continue to seek for better treatment options, other than lithium or drugs that mask creativity and often discourage patients from seeking treatment: “Left untreated, however, manic-depressive illness worsens overtime--and no one is creative when severely depressed, psychotic or dead” (49).  

In conclusion, these five sources agree that biographical and occupational correlations suggest a genetic factor, yet genetics alone does not account for creativity and discredits the role of individuality and environment. Ultimately, the individual must shape his or her experience into art. 

  Sources

 Caramagno, Thomas C. The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf’s Art and Manic Depressive Illness. 1992. London, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Ltd.,1995. Books Google. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

 Jamison, Kay Redfield. “Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity: Does some fine madness plague great artists? Several studies now show that creativity and mood disorders are linked.” Scientific American, Inc (1997): 44-49. PBWorks. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

 Kyaga, Simon, Paul Lichtenstein, Marcus Boman, Christina Hultman, Niklas Angstrom. “Creativity and mental disorder: family study of 300 000 people with severe mental disorder.” The British Journal of Psychiatry 199 (2011): 373-379. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

 Mai, Francois. “The tortured artist is not a myth.” Ottawa Citizen 10 Feb. 2014: p.A9.LexisNexis. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

 Wong, Sierra. Personal interview. 25 Feb. 2014.

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