Creativity and
mental disorders
Creativity could be described as the ability to create
products or ideas which are original and which possess a strong social
usefulness. To create, indeed, implies the production of something new and
original. However the qualities that make an individual able to produce new
entities are not well understood. As is also the case with the concept known as
"intelligence", it is unlikely there is a general creativity factor
unevenly distributed across the population. Rather, creativity can be conceived
as a complex of qualities that allow some people more easily than others to
produce new objects or ideas.
Most studies show that there is a link between creative
ability and the risk of mental disorder: in fact, the prevalence of mental
problems among creatively gifted people is often, but not always, significantly
higher than among the general population.
Studies on the relationship between creativity and mental
illnesses suggest that they are the same characteristics of the disorder, in
their less severe manifestations, which confer some advantage on afflicted
individuals and their relatives.
The propensity to develop a mental disorder can be conceived
as a hitchhiker allele that confers no fitness advantage per se, but which
endures because it is linked to creative abilities that are important for
survival.
The group expressing the most creative personalities will
acquire an adaptive advantage that preserves the integrity of the group as a
whole, despite the vulnerability of the individual who is subject to mental
breakdowns.
If a group derives
some advantage from the presence of individuals with a mutant gene, this
advantage extends to the other members of the group lacking in the gene since
they benefit, as members of the group, from better access to the resources for
survival and reproduction produced by the carriers.
Creativity,
evolution and mental disorders
The contribution of psychiatry
to the study of creativity
Creativity,
evolution & schizophrenia