Creativity & Schizophrenia
Antonio Preti
MINORITY
REPORT
Most of the production of schizophrenic patients is in the field of pictorial symbolism. Indeed, the first authors to deal with psychopathological art noted the affinity between the works of psychotic patients and primitive art, also noticing analogies with the de-constructive spirit of the avant-garde (Arieti, 1976). These affinities were also found by the same avant-garde artists, in particular surrealists (the founder of surrealism, André Breton, was a psychiatrist). The surrealist payed great attention to the creative expressions of psychiatric patients. The artistic production of schizophrenic patients, however, is not always spontaneous: often patients express their creations in the workshops of mental hospital. It is possible that the drive to creative expression in these patients derives from a desire to escape the boredom of internment. It can not be excluded, however, that the patients grasp an opportunity which was never offered to them in the past: the desire to paint observed in many schizophrenic patients is in contrast with their general inactivity and lack of interest.
Many
of schizophrenic patients’ works have a particularly
original and unusual content. This ability of schizophrenic patients make and
depict unusual mental associations or to express themselves in very uncommon
ways has been linked by some authors to the greater access that these patients
have to more primitive dimensions of thought. It is a fact that some of the
experiences of schizophrenia allow, though painfully, an expansion of the human
condition. Those researchers who have studied the style of thought of
schizophrenic patients found interesting affinities between some characteristics
of schizophrenics and those typical of creative individuals (Mednick, 1968;
Dykes and McGhie, 1976; Hasenfus and Magaro, 1976; Woody and Claridge, 1977;
Preti and Miotto, 1997b and 1997c). Often creative individuals report odd
sensory and perceptual experiences, feelings of restlessness and the inclination
towards impulsive outbursts in association with rejection of common social
values and highly unusual subjective experiences, just like schizophrenic patients (Cattell
and Drevdahl, 1956; Dykes and McGhie, 1976; Woody and Claridge, 1977). In
addition, highly creative normals tend to show overinclusive or “allusive”
thinking and, as pointed out by Albert Rothenberg (1971 and 1983), demonstrate
an ability to conceive and utilize two or more opposite or contradictory ideas
or concepts simultaneously, without being disturbed by this simultaneity of
opposition, as also do schizophrenics.
It
seems that creative individuals, like schizophrenics, posses a widening of
selective attention, which renders them more aware and receptive of experience,
with more intensive sampling of environmental stimuli (Hasenfus and Magaro,
1976). In fact ideational fluency and a preference for complex and asymmetrical
designs, two of the main characteristics contributing to creativity, could
derive from higher levels of arousal and from faster stimulation of discrete
cerebral areas. Schizophrenia tends to allow unusual associations, which result
in overinclusive thinking, with many irrelevant elements included in reasoning:
this peculiar style of thought is conceived as deriving from a failure of normal
filtering of stimuli by dysfunctional gating systems (Braff and Geyer, 1990;
Preti, 1995).
Creative
individuals, on the other hand, may gain advantage from higher levels of
associative thinking, since they are capable of effectively processing these
increased inputs without the risk of cognitive overload. Since to create
consists essentially in the making of new combinations of associative elements,
any ability which serves to bring otherwise remote ideas into contiguity will
facilitate a creative solution (Mednick, 1968). This implies an extended
knowledge of the argument under study (memory of ideas to be associated) and a
restriction of inhibitory influences on stimulation of remote cerebral areas (to
favour association). The more associations evoked by an element, the more likely
it is that another element will be combined in a manegeable form. Since
inhibition or suppression (by anxiety or other more powerful competitory stimuli)
would limit awareness and openness to both internal and external stimuli, their
loosening would favour associative thinking, and so creativity.
These
observations suggest that in schizophrenia there are cognitive elements which,
when controlled by the subject who experiences them, may favour creative
expression. The studies showing a familial link between creative eminence in an
individual and the diagnosis of schizophrenia in a close relative offer
confirmation of the hypothesis of a relationship between creativity and
schizophrenia (Juda, 1949; Karlsson, 1978). This is surprising, since
schizophrenia is a severe and impairing disorder, with a heavy burden of
disability and premature mortality.