The link between intelligence, creativity and mental illness. Good stuff. [View all]

[Maraya1969]

Got this from a thread started by BainsBane

http://schoolgirlforreal.hubpages.com/hub/A-List-of-Famous-People-Today-With-Mental-Illnesses

Creativity interlinks with Illness

One of the really interesting and cool things about mental illness is that certain types of illnesses, mainly bipolar gives a person a creative edge, though other illnesses go hand in hand with highly intelligent people such as Professor John Nash, who won the Nobel Prize for mathematics, for one. I don't think that you have to be mentally ill to be genius but it seems mental illness and genius often do go hand in hand. And that is why I write this article on famous people who have contributed so greatly to science and art, and music while yet dealing with an illness and why if they have something valuable to offer, anyone can. It makes so much sense to me to shed light on the fact that no one needs to be ashamed. There is no one who is exempt from possibly "contracting" this invisible disease! Read on and share this page.

"It takes a little bit of crazy to make a genius." ~Anonymous

The contributions which the following people have given to the world will not forgotten, nor should future Abraham Lincolns, or Jim Carreys, or Charles Dickens be discouraged.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/creativity-mental-illness-bipolar-disorder_n_1972391.html

Creativity Tied To Mental Illnesses Like Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia In New Swedish Study

Creative types are thought to be more likely to suffer from mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. A new large-scale study of the Swedish population helps confirm this link.

Last year, researchers at the Karolinska Institutet near Stockholm found that families with a history of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia were more likely to produce artists and scientists. They built on this evidence in a new study, published this month in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, which covers a larger population sample and a wider scope of psychiatric diagnoses.

The researchers used 40-years' worth of data from Sweden's health registry, looking at the anonymous records of almost 1.2 million patients and their relatives. They found certain mental illness — in particular bipolar disorder — are more common among artists and scientists, from dancers and photographers to researchers and authors.

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