The association between genius and madness It is not recent belief, it is said that to be creative you have to be crazy. Already Plato speaks, in Phaedroof “divine madness” to refer to the creative ability of man, and Cesare Lombrosoa famous Italian frenologist, theorized that genius was a form of mental degeneration. To feed this relationship, the stories (perhaps even a little fictional) of artists, writers and scientists with turbulent lives, such as Van Gogh, Nikola Tesla and John Nash, have fueled it stereotype Around the relationship between creativity And Psychiatric disorders. The genius is called the one who can produce unique, original and useful ideas, while madness is related to the presence of psychopathologies. Many researchers have tried to understand if there was really a link between genius and madness, but the research currently available tells us that in reality this relationship is only a myth popular, Although some research shows a greater ability to “think out of the patterns” in subjects with mild psychopathologies.
The real scientific bond between genius and mental disorders
There is a disclaimer to do immediately: what is meant by genius? What for madness instead? Scientists have conceptualized the genius in terms of creativitythe ability to produce original ideas or products at the same time. There follymore simply, is the condition in which there is one or more psychopathologiessyndromes characterized by a disturbing alteration of mood, behavior and cognitive functions. But here too, things get complicated: which psychopathology do we want to study to see if it is related to genius? There are many in the medical spectrum: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autistic spectrum disorder and so on. Each of these presents different qualities, different ways of mental and large operation individual variability.
Net of this clarification, which however remains perhaps the most important thing, the studies tell us that the relationship between genius and madness belongs more to the world of myths popular that not to that of scientific reality, as highlighted by different meta -analysis (a type of studies that contains a lot of previous research). Studying the schizophreniaAcar and colleagues in 2018 bring out a slightly correlation negative between this psychopathology and creative ability. Similarly for theautism: another 2020 meta -analysis highlights how, On average, In the population that falls within the autistic spectrum syndrome we find a lower number of creative individuals compared to the non -autistic population. For the bipolar disorderon the other hand, the situation seems to change in a positive sense, with some suspicions that indicates a light advantage in the creativity of bipolar subjects.
How to measure creativity
In reality, the problem is even more complex, because establishing if there is an association between creativity and psychopathology largely also depends on how we measure and evaluate creativity.
Take for example only two parameters of creativity, namely divergent and convergent creativity. Creativity divergent It is that type of creativity that derives from “think out of the box“, travel roads and ideas not yet beaten and try to redefine the concepts to recreate new ones. That type of creativity that leads to revolutions In the artistic and scientific field, which starts new theories or currents of thought.
Creativity convergentOn the contrary, it is that type of creativity that concerns the ability to generate new conclusions and solutions to start, however, from logical rules already set: That is, to solve a problem by applying and adapting specific procedures, without however rethinking the problem itself.
What emerges from the research, as published in the magazine Schizophrenia Research, is that subjects with various psychiatric disorders get higher scores (even better, even if slightly, compared to the able -bodied population) in tasks of divergent creativity rather than in those of convergent creativity.
More original, but less efficient solutions
By combining these apparently conflicting results, it emerges that a slight advantage of the component of theoriginality of thoughts and products but, at the same time, a deficit in theefficiency Compared to a problem to be solved, or a goal to be achieved. It therefore seems that this advantage of originality and divergent thought is given precisely by difficulty for conformism that the psychopathological condition brings with it, to the less social motivation and one mental representation of the world different already at the rootthat is, a different “perceptual style”.
However, this greater originality is linked to the gravity of the disease: the intensification of psychopathology, creative abilities decrease. The qualities of originality, in fact, have their peak in subjects who present mild shapes of schizotypy or High -functioning autistic spectrum disorderwhile they are completely compromised in those subjects with advanced course or who receive few care.
