Are Depressed Artists Somehow More Profound? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Supple Cow · 04-19-2005, 05:53 PM

This is pretty long, but I took the liberty of highlighting what I found to be salient points.

Quote:

There's Nothing Deep About Depression
By PETER D. KRAMER

LINK

Shortly after the publication of my book ''Listening to Prozac,'' 12 years ago, I became immersed in depression. Not my own. I was contented enough in the slog through midlife. But mood disorder surrounded me, in my contacts with patients and readers. To my mind, my book was never really about depression. Taking the new antidepressants, some of my patients said they found themselves more confident and decisive. I used these claims as a jumping-off point for speculation: what if future medications had the potential to modify personality traits in people who had never experienced mood disorder? If doctors were given access to such drugs, how should they prescribe them? The inquiry moved from medical ethics to social criticism: what does our culture demand of us, in the way of assertiveness?

It was the medications' extra effects -- on personality, not on the symptoms of depression -- that provoked this line of thought. For centuries, doctors have treated depressed patients, using medication and psychological strategies. Those efforts seemed uncontroversial. But authors do not determine the fate of their work. ''Listening to Prozac'' became a ''best-selling book about depression.'' I found myself speaking -- sometimes about ethics, more often about mood disorders -- with many audiences, in bookstores, at gatherings of the mentally ill and their families and at professional meetings. Invariably, as soon as I had finished my remarks, a hand would shoot up. A hearty, jovial man would rise and ask -- always the same question -- ''What if Prozac had been available in van Gogh's time?''

I understood what was intended, a joke about a pill that makes people blandly chipper. The New Yorker had run cartoons along these lines -- Edgar Allan Poe, on Prozac, making nice to a raven. Below the surface humor were issues I had raised in my own writing. Might a widened use of medication deprive us of insight about our condition? But with repetition, the van Gogh question came to sound strange. Facing a man in great pain, headed for self-mutilation and death, who would withhold a potentially helpful treatment?

It may be that my response was grounded less in the intent of the question than in my own experience. For 20 years, I'd spent my afternoons working with psychiatric outpatients in Providence, R.I. As I wrote more, I let my clinical hours dwindle. One result was that more of my time was filled with especially challenging cases, with patients who were not yet better. The popularity of ''Listening to Prozac'' meant that the most insistent new inquiries were from families with depressed members who had done poorly elsewhere. In my life as a doctor, unremitting depression became an intimate. It is poor company. Depression destroys families. It ruins careers. It ages patients prematurely.

Recent research has made the fight against depression especially compelling. Depression is associated with brain disorganization and nerve-cell atrophy. Depression appears to be progressive -- the longer the episode, the greater the anatomical disorder. To work with depression is to combat a disease that harms patients' nerve pathways day by day.

Nor is the damage merely to mind and brain. Depression has been linked with harm to the heart, to endocrine glands, to bones. Depressives die young -- not only of suicide, but also of heart attacks and strokes. Depression is a multisystem disease, one we would consider dangerous to health even if we lacked the concept ''mental illness.''

As a clinician, I found the what if challenge ever less amusing. And so I began to ask audience members what they had in mind. Most understood van Gogh to have suffered severe depression. His illness, they thought, conferred special vision. In a short story, Poe likens ''an utter depression of soul'' to ''the hideous dropping off of the veil.'' The questioners maintained this 19th-century belief, that depression reveals essence to those brave enough to face it. By this account, depression is more than a disease -- it has a sacred aspect.

Other questioners set aside that van Gogh was actually ill. They took mood disorder to be a heavy dose of the artistic temperament, so that any application of antidepressants is finally cosmetic, remolding personality into a more socially acceptable form. For them, depression was less than a disease.

These attributions stood in contrast to my own belief, that depression is neither more nor less than a disease, but disease simply and altogether.

Audiences seemed to be aware of the medical perspective, even to endorse it -- but not to have adopted it as a habit of mind. To underscore this inconsistency, I began to pose a test question: We say that depression is a disease. Does that mean that we want to eradicate it as we have eradicated smallpox, so that no human being need ever suffer depression again? I made it clear that mere sadness was not at issue. Take major depression, however you define it. Are you content to be rid of that condition?

Always, the response was hedged: aren't we meant to be depressed? Are we talking about changing human nature?

I took those protective worries as expressions of what depression is to us. Asked whether we are content to eradicate arthritis, no one says, ''Well, the end-stage deformation, yes, but let's hang on to tennis elbow, housemaid's knee and the early stages of rheumatoid disease.'' Multiple sclerosis, acne, schizophrenia, psoriasis, bulimia, malaria -- there is no other disease we consider preserving. But eradicating depression calls out the caveats.

To this way of thinking, to oppose depression too completely is to be coarse and reductionist -- to miss the inherent tragedy of the human condition. To be depressed, even gravely, is to be in touch with what matters most in life, its finitude and brevity, its absurdity and arbitrariness. To be depressed is to occupy the role of rebel and social critic. Depression, in our culture, is what tuberculosis was 100 years ago: illness that signifies refinement.

Having raised the thought experiment, I should emphasize that in reality, the possibility of eradicating depression is not at hand. If clinicians are better at ameliorating depression than we were 10 years ago -- and I think we may be -- that is because we are more persistent in our efforts, combining treatments and (when they succeed) sticking with them until they have a marked effect. But in terms of the tools available, progress in the campaign against depression has been plodding.

Still, it is possible to envisage general medical progress that lowers the rate of depression substantially -- and then to think of a society that enjoys that result. What is lost, what gained? Which is also to ask: What stands in the way of our embracing the notion that depression is disease, nothing more?

This question has any number of answers. We idealize depression, associating it with perceptiveness, interpersonal sensitivity and other virtues. Like tuberculosis in its day, depression is a form of vulnerability that even contains a measure of erotic appeal. But the aspect of the romanticization of depression that seems to me to call for special attention is the notion that depression spawns creativity.

Objective evidence for that effect is weak. Older inquiries, the first attempts to examine the overlap of madness and genius, made positive claims for schizophrenia. Recent research has looked at mood disorders. These studies suggest that bipolar disorder may be overrepresented in the arts. (Bipolarity, or manic-depression, is another diagnosis proposed for van Gogh.) But then mania and its lesser cousin hypomania may drive productivity in many fields. One classic study hints at a link between alcoholism and literary work. But the benefits of major depression, taken as a single disease, have been hard to demonstrate. If anything, traits eroded by depression -- like energy and mental flexibility -- show up in contemporary studies of creativity.

How, then, did this link between creativity and depression arise? The belief that mental illness is a form of inspiration extends back beyond written history. Hippocrates was answering some such claim, when, around 400 B.C., he tried to define melancholy -- an excess of ''black bile'' -- as a disease. To Hippocrates, melancholy was a disorder of the humors that caused epileptic seizures when it affected the body and caused dejection when it affected the mind. Melancholy was blamed for hemorrhoids, ulcers, dysentery, skin rashes and diseases of the lungs.

The most influential expression of the contrasting position -- that melancholy confers special virtues -- appears in the ''Problemata Physica,'' or ''Problems,'' a discussion, in question-and-answer form, of scientific conundrums. It was long attributed to Aristotle, but the surviving version, from the second century B.C., is now believed to have been written by his followers. In the 30th book of the ''Problems,'' the author asks why it is that outstanding men -- philosophers, statesmen, poets, artists, educators and heroes -- are so often melancholic. Among the ancients, the strongmen Herakles and Ajax were melancholic; more contemporaneous examples cited in the ''Problems'' include Socrates, Plato and the Spartan general Lysander. The answer given is that too much black bile leads to insanity, while a moderate amount creates men ''superior to the rest of the world in many ways. ''

The Greeks, and the cultures that succeeded them, faced depression poorly armed. Treatment has always been difficult. Depression is common and spans the life cycle. When you add in (as the Greeks did) mania, schizophrenia and epilepsy, not to mention hemorrhoids, you encompass a good deal of what humankind suffers altogether. Such an impasse calls for the elaboration of myth. Over time, ''melancholy '' became a universal metaphor, standing in for sin and innocent suffering, self-indulgence and sacrifice, inferiority and perspicacity.

The great flowering of melancholy occurred during the Renaissance, as humanists rediscovered the ''Problems.'' In the late 15th century, a cult of melancholy flourished in Florence and then was taken back to England by foppish aristocratic travelers who styled themselves artists and scholars and affected the melancholic attitude and dress. Most fashionable of all were ''melancholic malcontents,'' irritable depressives given to political intrigue. One historian, Lawrence Babb, describes them as ''black-suited and disheveled . . . morosely meditative, taciturn yet prone to occasional railing.''

In dozens of stage dramas from the period, the principal character is a discontented melancholic. ''Hamlet'' is the great example. As soon as Hamlet takes the stage, an Elizabethan audience would understand that it is watching a tragedy whose hero's characteristic flaw will be a melancholic trait, in this case, paralysis of action. By the same token, the audience would quickly accept Hamlet's spiritual superiority, his suicidal impulses, his hostility to the established order, his protracted grief, solitary wanderings, erudition, impaired reason, murderousness, role-playing, passivity, rashness, antic disposition, ''dejected haviour of the visage'' and truck with graveyards and visions.

''Hamlet'' is arguably the seminal text of our culture, one that cements our admiration for doubt, paralysis and alienation. But seeing ''Hamlet'' in its social setting, in an era rife with melancholy as an affected posture, might make us wonder how much of the historical association between melancholy and its attractive attributes is artistic conceit.

In literature, the cultural effects of depression may be particularly marked. Writing, more than most callings, can coexist with a relapsing and recurring illness. Composition does not require fixed hours; poems or essays can be set aside and returned to on better days. And depression is an attractive subject. Superficially, mental pain resembles passion, strong emotion that stands in opposition to the corrupt world. Depression can have a picaresque quality -- think of the journey through the Slough of Despond in John Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's Progress.'' Over the centuries, narrative structures were built around the descent into depression and the recovery from it. Lyric poetry, religious memoir, the novel of youthful self-development -- depression is an affliction that inspires not just art but art forms. And art colors values. Where the unacknowledged legislators of mankind are depressives, dark views of the human condition will be accorded special worth.

Through the ''anxiety of influence,'' heroic melancholy cast its shadow far forward, onto romanticism and existentialism. At a certain point, the transformation begun in the Renaissance reaches completion. It is no longer that melancholy leads to heroism. Melancholy is heroism. The challenge is not battle but inner strife. The rumination of the depressive, however solipsistic, is deemed admirable. Repeatedly, melancholy returns to fashion.

As I spoke with audiences about mood disorders, I came to believe that part of what stood between depression and its full status as disease was the tradition of heroic melancholy. Surely, I would be asked when I spoke with college students, surely I saw the value in alienation. One medical philosopher asked what it would mean to prescribe Prozac to Sisyphus, condemned to roll his boulder up the hill.

That variant of the what if question sent me to Albert Camus's essay on Sisyphus, where I confirmed what I thought I had remembered -- that in Camus's reading, Sisyphus, the existential hero, remains upbeat despite the futility of his task. The gods intend for Sisyphus to suffer. His rebellion, his fidelity to self, rests on the refusal to be worn down. Sisyphus exemplifies resilience, in the face of full knowledge of his predicament. Camus says that joy opens our eyes to the absurd -- and to our freedom. It is not only in the downhill steps that Sisyphus triumphs over his punishment: ''The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.''

I came to suspect that it was the automatic pairing of depth and depression that made the medical philosopher propose Sisyphus as a candidate for mood enhancement. We forget that alienation can be paired with elation, that optimism is a form of awareness. I wanted to reclaim Sisyphus, to set his image on the poster for the campaign against depression.

Once we take seriously the notion that depression is a disease like any other, we will want to begin our discussion of alienation by asking diagnostic questions. Perhaps this sense of dislocation signals an apt response to circumstance, but that one points to an episode of an illness. Aware of the extent and effects of mood disorder, we may still value alienation -- and ambivalence and anomie and the other uncomfortable traits that sometimes express perspective and sometimes attach to mental illness. But we are likely to assess them warily, concerned that they may be precursors or residual symptoms of major depression.

How far does our jaundiced view reach? Surely the label ''disease'' does not apply to the melancholic or depressive temperament? And of course, it does not. People can be pessimistic and lethargic, brooding and cautious, without ever falling ill in any way. But still, it seemed to me in my years of immersion that depression casts a long shadow. Though I had never viewed it as pathology, even Woody Allen-style neurosis had now been stripped of some of its charm -- of any implicit claim, say, of superiority. The cachet attaching to tuberculosis diminished as science clarified the cause of the illness, and as treatment became first possible and then routine. Depression may follow the same path. As it does, we may find that heroic melancholy is no more.

In time, I came to think of the van Gogh question in a different light, merging it with the eradication question. What sort of art would be meaningful or moving in a society free of depression? Boldness and humor -- broad or sly -- might gain in status. Or not. A society that could guarantee the resilience of mind and brain might favor operatic art and literature. Freedom from depression would make the world safe for high neurotics, virtuosi of empathy, emotional bungee-jumpers. It would make the world safe for van Gogh.

Depression is not a perspective. It is a disease. Resisting that claim, we may ask: Seeing cruelty, suffering and death -- shouldn't a person be depressed? There are circumstances, like the Holocaust, in which depression might seem justified for every victim or observer. Awareness of the ubiquity of horror is the modern condition, our condition.

But then, depression is not universal, even in terrible times. Though prone to mood disorder, the great Italian writer Primo Levi was not depressed in his months at Auschwitz. I have treated a handful of patients who survived horrors arising from war or political repression. They came to depression years after enduring extreme privation. Typically, such a person will say: ''I don't understand it. I went through -- '' and here he will name one of the shameful events of our time. ''I lived through that, and in all those months, I never felt this.'' This refers to the relentless bleakness of depression, the self as hollow shell. To see the worst things a person can see is one experience; to suffer mood disorder is another. It is depression -- and not resistance to it or recovery from it -- that diminishes the self.

Beset by great evil, a person can be wise, observant and disillusioned and yet not depressed. Resilience confers its own measure of insight. We should have no trouble admiring what we do admire -- depth, complexity, aesthetic brilliance -- and standing foursquare against depression.

Peter D. Kramer is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University and the author of ''Listening to Prozac.'' This essay is adapted from his book ''Against Depression,'' which Viking will publish next month.

I happen to agree wholeheartedly with the man, but I can't assume that everybody else does considering the trend he's described in society's attitude toward depression. What do you think?

Seeker · 04-19-2005, 06:38 PM

In my opinion, depression should not be an aspired profound place of being. It is about emotion conflicting with cognitive processes. Anything looked at as profound (in art, poetry or literature) is an expression of thought or feelings and it provokes insight and questioning. It conveys a profound message to the viewer, enabeling them to understand a perspective.

Depression is a disease, it varies in depth and scope for different people, and should be addressed. Depression is saying that something is wrong. Taking meds only fixes the symptoms, it does not address the core reason for the conflict. I doubt that anyone considered profound for their expressions feel special or good about it - it's a dark, nasty, horrible place to be.

*Note: Medication is good for those that suffer depression for biological/neurological reasons, please don't jump on me for that!

ARTelevision · 04-20-2005, 04:11 AM

IMO, there's no relationship between depression and profundity.

Depression is best done away with by necessary means.

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 04:25 AM

Manic depression, on the other hand, is very highly associated with creativity. Many classical composers suffered from manic depression, and did most of their creative work during the manic phase. There are lots of academic articles on this connection that I could dig up and post if anybody's interested.

ngdawg · 04-20-2005, 05:11 AM

He touches on it in that article, but essentially, depression can take shape from different origins-organic, or environmental.
As someone who suffered from depression caused by environmental circumstances and not from any chemical imbalance or neurological malfunction, I don't think it's possible to totally eradicate the malady from society. It takes way too many forms, causes a vast variety of physical ailments and can have varying degrees of incapacitation to the ones who suffer from it. It took several months, several physical illnesses and 3 doctors to diagnose me, then another 6 months of intense therapy. My particular type manifested itself into 'psychosomatic illness', in which the mind takes control of the body's immunity responses. Other depressive illnesses include anorexia, bulimia, self mutilation and alcohol or drug addiction. Seems to me that's an awful lot of irradication to attempt.
It'd be wonderful to say that depression should be and can be made the way of smallpox. On the other hand, those of us who lived through it and got help have just a tad more knowledge of what our moods mean, what might happen should we let things go and how to work on avoiding the downward spiral.
Does it feed creativity? Yes, it does, in a small way, but only if we know to use our creativity to rise above it. Does it enhance creativity? No, it can, in fact stifle it, as we slowly draw up the walls around us to hide from the experiences of life.
I live by the old adage, what does not kill me makes me stronger. And I ain't dead yet!

ARTelevision · 04-20-2005, 05:12 AM

Mere coincidence.

(note: this is in response to raveneye - ngdawg posted her comment between us)

Charlatan · 04-20-2005, 05:17 AM

Depressed artist, who write depressing music are only seemingly more interesting because depressed youth can connect to the message.

The teenage (read: puberty) years are tough years.

Are these artists any *more* profound than any other... not really.

lurkette · 04-20-2005, 05:39 AM

If you look at it objectively, eradicating depression would be a Very Good Thing.

Something like 20% of the U.S. population can be expected to suffer depression in their lifetimes. That's roughly 50 million people. That's a huge toll in terms of misery, not to mention more material things like lost wages.

If you look at our greatest artists, not all of them or even most of them were depressed. What we are taking for depression or other mental illness (especially in artists) was often some kind of organic disease - like syphillis - or dementia brought on by poisoning from their paints. Van Gogh is a prime example. Just because he painted beautifully, should we advocate for lead and mercury consumption to inspire art? (Read "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk) Many of our best artists were *gasp* perfectly sane. They might have had troubles in their lives with which they dealt badly, or through their art, but I don't necessary think correlation=causation. Often, artists that did have depression or other mental illness were horrible at managing their own lives and died unappreciated, alienated, and broke - it was only after their deaths that they were recognized. Would one man's debilitating suffering be worth it so you can have a pretty Starry Night or whatever hanging over your sofa?

I don't think one needs to be depressed to be mind-blowingly creative, to have insights into the human condition, to have a vision that you want desperately to share.

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Would one man's debilitating suffering be worth it so you can have a pretty Starry Night or whatever hanging over your sofa?

Nope. I agree that the correlation between various psychopathologies and creativity does in no way imply that these disorders are desirable in any way whatsoever.

However, the correlation e.g. between manic depression and creative productivity is certainly very large and significant (far larger than expected by chance alone). Acknowledging that there is not a simple cause and effect relationship between these two variables does nothing to imply that there is no causal explanation whatsoever for this correlation. Understanding the causes of this (assuredly not coincidental) relationship I think would help in a general understanding of the causes of creativity. Whether this understanding would have any practical value, however, is hard to say.

Here's a fairly recent research paper, that found a significant "humped" relationship between level of creativity and level of mental illness:

Quote:

Title: Creativity and the evolution of psychopathologies
Author(s): Ghadirian AM, Gregoire P, Kosmidis H
Source: CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL 13 (2): 145-148 2000

Abstract: The relation between creativity and mental illness has been the object of significant interest and research in psychiatry. However both psychopathology and creativity are issues of profound complexity some aspects of which are yet to be explored. This study was designed to explore changes in creativity in relation to the type and degree of psychopathology in 2 groups of patients. Forty-four patients, consisting of 20 patients with manic depressive illness (bipolar disorder) and 24 patients suffering from other psychopathologies, participated in this study. There were 23 women (M age = 43.6) and 21 men (M age = 43.7). We applied a psychological battery of tests using measures for creativity, intelligence and mood changes. All patients signed the informed consent form. The results are as follows: There was no difference in the creative abilities of patients with bipolar illness (creativity score: M = 104.4 SD = 44.9) as compared to those with other types of psychopathology (creativity score: M = 101.8, SD = 40.8). The study data were analyzed according to the degree of severity of illness, namely, mildly, moderately, or severely ill. Creativity was found to be at its highest level in patients who were moderately ill (creativity score: M = 118.3). The lowest creativity score (M = 62.1) was in the group of patients identified as severely ill. The difference was statistically significant (t = 4.35, p < .001).

And here's a review paper that criticizes Jamison's book. Sass takes the viewpoint that the biological "causes" or "precursors" of creativity can also predispose one to mental illness. In other words, there is a third unmeasured variable that is causally related to the two observed ones, that is responsible for the correlation. This view I think seems to have become the dominant one in this field.

Quote:

Title: Schizophrenia, modernism, and the "creative imagination": On creativity and psychopathology
Author(s): Sass LA
Source: CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL 13 (1): 55-74 2000

Abstract: In this article, I consider the relation between creativity and the schizophrenia spectrum of personality and mental disorders in the light of differing notions of creativity and the creative process. Prevailing conceptions of creativity in psychology and psychiatry derive from romanticist ideas about the creative imagination; they differ considerably from notions central in modernism and postmodernism. Whereas romanticism views creative inspiration as a highly emotional, Dionysian, or primitive state, modernism and postmodernism emphasize processes involving hyper-self-consciousness and alienation (hyperreflexivity). Although manic-depressive or cyclothymic tendencies seem especially suited to creativity of the romantic sort, schizoid, schizotypal, schizophreniform, and schizophrenic tendencies have more in common with the (in many respects, antiromantic) sensibilities of modernism and postmodemism. I criticize a book by psychologist Jamison (1993), Touched With Fire: Manio-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament,for treating romantic notions of creativity as if they defined creativity in general. I also argue that Jamison's denial or neglect of the creative potential of persons in the schizophrenia spectrum relies on certain diagnostic oversimplifications: an overly broad conception of affective illness and an excessively narrow conception of schizophrenia that ignores the creative potential of the schizophrenia spectrum.

roachboy · 04-20-2005, 06:21 AM

my experience is that depression and producing stuff tend to be mutually exclusive.
i have assumed for some time that the correlations of the two comes from the outside (critics, etc.) who for some reason prefer to see art production through the lens of romantic myths about art in general. but that i speaking from where i think i am now.

these myths about art, about artists, often have their worst effects on younger artists, particularly those who come to what they do from outside the usual channels of training, etc.---in my experience, this population (which includes a younger version of myself--actually, this "population" might be only a younger version of myself--it is hard to know) tend to believe all kinds of goofy, debilitating things about what enables them to think and work as they do. maybe this is a function of a kind of search for authorization. maybe it is a pretext for getting fucked up. i dont know, frankly. but i remember when i was younger, for what its worth, i relied entirely on this thing called "inspiration"--about which diego rivera was right when he said that inspiration is for amatuers---i associated "inspriation" with extreme internal states---what i did musically reflected these assumptions in that the piece would not develop, but were rather one idea after another after another.

the point here is that i associated particular internal states with making stuff, such as it was: it happened that my particular associations were shaped by hallucinogens and attending cultural debris rather than by depression (the brooding artists type seemed to me dull--i prefered jumping off the edge of rational communication altogether)

maybe this kind of thing explains another quote, this from t.s. eliot:
everyone is a poet at 18---no-one is at 40.

it is more complex with bipolar disorder. a close friend is both an extraordinarily gifted artist and someone who fights with bipolar disorder--when he was younger his art production was definitely linked to cycles of the condition--partly i think because he associated the two for himself

anyway, when i first met him, he was working his way out from the effects of the drug-oriented treatment regime into which he had been routed and was worried about starting to work again because of the various associations he had fashioned for himself between the condition and his work. it took some work and considerable courage (to my mind anyway) to push into this knot and seperate the two (production from bipolar phases)....

i think that underneath all this is the change that seems to me necessary for someone to move from being a younger artist to being one that might be able to keep going and developing for the longer haul---for the latter, it seems that a coherent process has to be developed, where the former might not see the need for a process in the same way.

as for the question of "profundity"---i have to say that i do not know what this means. i dont what its characteristics are, nor do i know how the notion of the "profound" can operate as a motor for what anyone does.

for example, it does not seem to me particularly "profound" to work out that much of the reality folk live through is a type of illusion insofar as it is wholly shaped by the dominant ideology of the time. but working something of this out by seeing it during an lsd voyage when i was 19 certainly seemed profound. i remember wanting to write down some of the Deep Thoughts that were occurring to me around this insight. i found a notebook and began doing things in to to catch the Insights that felt like they were raining down on me--then i wandered away and did other equally profound things, which probably involved looking at trees or listening to "bike" for the 30th time--i found the notebook the next day and saw that i had drawn a squirrel. there was a big arrow drawn next to it. i guess i wanted to be sure that i remembered that i had found the Secret of the Universe, and that this was It.

all this profundity stuff seems mostly about things that will later embarass you.

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 06:44 AM

Since roachboy offered some personal history, let me do the same.

I don't have any major mental illness (although my wife might dispute that statement . . . ) but I do consider myself to have definite, noticeable schizoid tendencies, and these have been there for as long as I can remember.

I would also consider myself very creative (musically at least), although I have never had any sort of psychological evaluation on that basis. But I have made a decent living for many years performing purely improvisational piano, i.e. sitting down and just playing, for hours at a time.

I agree with roachboy that the idea of "inspiration" doesn't apply much. It doesn't matter what mood I'm in, although I seem to be much more creative around 8-10PM than any other time of day (at least that's my subjective impression, who knows if it's really true). But no matter what my mood, if I have a gig I can pull it out. Where it comes from, I don't know, but it's there no matter the "mood" or the "inspiration".

The main exception to this is that during the weeks after my brother was killed I was far more productive than ever before in my life. The reason is that I had a tremendous need to create something valuable to replace his loss and honor him. So I think loss and grief can create a mental state that is very conducive to creativity.

But if I were to "explain" my personal creativity in general terms, I would say that mood is irrelevant, but that there is definitely a connection between my schizoid-ness and my creativity. To me the two feel like different facets of the same thing; they are both fundamentally important in how I react to and view the world. And they both seem to be always there, nothing can get rid of them.

Whether I would be equally creative without the other thing, or more creative, I don't know. But to me they definitely feel like they are fundamentally, at their base, the same.

ARTelevision · 04-20-2005, 06:44 AM

roachboy nails another one.
thanks, my friend!

I'm aware of the research and the pathology. It's interesting but illuminative of nothing more than socio-cultural reality and circumstance. Artists are pursuing something that is not generally highly valued by society - especially in its developmental stages. This is sensible as society is geared toward material efficiency and tangibly valuable productivity.

warrrreagl · 04-20-2005, 06:56 AM

Many creative people that I know also eat carrots. Perhaps that's the source of their creativity, too.

Correlation does not equal cause-and-effect.

martinguerre · 04-20-2005, 07:06 AM

kay jamison, a pyschiatrist at Johns Hopkins who has written extensively on mental illness, has a book called "touched by fire" that deals with this question. worth a read if you think there's nothing to do with artistic spirit and mental illness. it's clear to me that there is a link, but that that link doesn't mean anything about treatment. it's not a ban on getting treated, nor do i think we can reasonably require treatment of everyone.

i have been unresponsive to medication evet since they started trying....and one of the big side effects was for my creativity to be greatly dulled. and hell...these are just the SSRIS. lightwights by comparision to other pyschotropic medication. taking these drugs is a serious choice, and i place a lot of weight on the words choice. it may be what needs to happen to save a life...but othertimes it may be too much of a cost to someone's sense of self.

ARTelevision · 04-20-2005, 07:15 AM

Yes, my interpretation of the correlation was stated above. Engaging in an activity which may be described as anti-social in many ways leads to things like feelings of rejection, self-doubt, and anger - symptoms of depression. Conversely, people with these types of predilections will often choose anti-social means of expression, behaviors, and lifestyles.

This is a personal interpretation of the book referenced above and also the research on the subject. As it's moot, it's certainly discussable here. But IMO it's not the kind of thing that really adds much to our knowledge of anything except the way certain groups of individuals internalize and externalize problematic relationships with mainstream culture.

Cynthetiq · 04-20-2005, 07:17 AM

without incredible lows, how could one have incredible highs?

eliminating depression from individuals then how would any one know and understand and appreciate the real joys of life?

ngdawg · 04-20-2005, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

kay jamison, a pyschiatrist at Johns Hopkins who has written extensively on mental illness, has a book called "touched by fire" that deals with this question. worth a read if you think there's nothing to do with artistic spirit and mental illness. it's clear to me that there is a link, but that that link doesn't mean anything about treatment. it's not a ban on getting treated, nor do i think we can reasonably require treatment of everyone.

i have been unresponsive to medication evet since they started trying....and one of the big side effects was for my creativity to be greatly dulled. and hell...these are just the SSRIS. lightwights by comparision to other pyschotropic medication. taking these drugs is a serious choice, and i place a lot of weight on the words choice. it may be what needs to happen to save a life...but othertimes it may be too much of a cost to someone's sense of self.

Which is what the article seems to address. I know that, for me, that period of time was the least creative, but the most medicated and I certainly didn't feel any better physically or as a creative person.
And as roachboy pointed out, in our youth, we think we're connected to this vast creative world because of our angst. But all we were really was young.
Until science can first differentiate between the levels of both organic and environmental depressions, isolate them and treat the illness without compromising the personal 'self', I don't see a total eradication of it.
I do know one or two who are deeply creative and have some mental disorders, but by and large, the creative people I associate with are probably some of the sanest, most well-adjusted people on the planet.

roachboy · 04-20-2005, 07:22 AM

thanks for posting the above, martin: it crosses with the major experience of those around me who have struggled with depression. bipolar disoder, etc. and who are also artists: the problem becomes, for each of them, the dulling effects (at the least) of the psychotropics---they find themselves "better" because they feel nothing beyond a kind of sustained dialtone. THAT takes care of production. hell, that took care of most other aspects of their functional lives as well.

the cause of this seems to be an unintended consequence of the present hmo-dominated mental health care system: for all of the folk i know who found themselves in this type of place, psychotropics were handed out as if they were pez--it is like there is a de facto assumption that the drugs themselves are a kind of magic bullet--even as any of the providers of these drugs wold say the opposite were you to ask them. (it is not that different from academic institutions assuming that graduate students all have trust funds--it is absurd, they would deny it, but at the system level, it operates as a kind of enabling assumption)

they could get the psychotropic pez, but not anything even close to an adequate therapeutic function..and nothing even close to micromanagement of dosage.

this has flattened the production of everyone i know who has struggled with depression or other disorders that these days are treated with psychotropics---the psychotropics themselves, administered in this manner, as a function of this particular system of mental health care

in some cases, it has taken folk years to work out from under this.
.

Supple Cow · 04-20-2005, 07:27 AM

raveneye, I see how it can seem that the two are coming from the same place, but this is exactly what the article I posted describes. I don't doubt that you experienced depression after your brother was killed, but the fact that you felt a great inspiration and were very productive likely had more to do with the fact that you had a lot of strong feelings for your brother to begin with. Like you said, you felt the need to replace his loss and honor him... that's not depression making you creative, it's a situation that made it an appropriate time for you to express something you already felt at the same time as causing you depression.

EDIT: To clarify why I personally decided to post this article, I was more interested in the social aspect of what he describes. I don't actually think it's very realistic to say we'll be able to eradicate depression very soon, so that point is moot to me. I also realize that anti-depressants alter behavior in ways other than simply reducing depression so I can see why, if they did lead to an effective cure, some people would choose to battle with the depression without the meds. But that, to me, is the same issue of choosing medical treatment as in the case of choosing to have (or not have) a DNR order. Why do arguments about creativity belong in discussions of treating this illness? I say they don't.

Suave · 04-20-2005, 07:43 AM

Depression is a not a disease. It fails to meet all of the criteria that define a disease.

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 07:45 AM

Supple, I agree with what you're saying. But I think it is useful to separate out several meanings of what we're trying to get at with "cause and effect" which can be extremely complicated.

For example, the grief I felt was very motivating. It had to be dealt with somehow. I don't know how other people generally deal with it, but I couldn't just sit down and feel the agony. The agony, if it makes sense, "demanded" that I do something. Yes, all the other ingredients were already there, as you point out. But the agony sort of lit them on fire. I don't know how to really explain it.

So I agree that the depression didn't "cause" the creativity, in the sense that it was "sufficient" (no way was it sufficient, that would be ridiculous). But it may have been "necessary" in a sort of probabilistic sense, in that without it, all those ingredients would still have been sitting there (most likely), and wouldn't have been assembled into musical pieces.

So something can be a "motivating factor" even though that same something, at the same time, is very debilitating. And it was debilitating. Without the agony, I might have been able to be more creative, but the emotional, motivating, overwhelming need to express my very strong feelings, might simply not existed, so the end result may have been nothing at all.

This is a complex subject because it is difficult if not impossible to eliminate one thing from the "causal network" without eliminating a lot of other things.

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Engaging in an activity which may be described as anti-social in many ways leads to things like feelings of rejection, self-doubt, and anger - symptoms of depression.

This hypothesis, though, doesn't really explain the correlation, since the correlation exists even in childhood, even before the subject is aware of it.

EDIT: to give one example, a neighbor boy (whom I teach piano) is autistic (or PDD as they call it). He's 11, and his disorder is very obvious. He also is incredibly talented musically, can learn pieces by ear more quickly than I can and is a naturally creative improvisational musician.

This is one of those demonstrated correlations, between musical creativity (in this case) and PDD.

For a well known example, check out Matthew Savage, who at 11 is an accomplished jazz pianist and has several CDs out.

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.o...nt/msavage.cfm

Supple Cow · 04-20-2005, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suave

Depression is a not a disease. It fails to meet all of the criteria that define a disease.

Could you show us what criteria you are using to be able to make this statement?

Also, if you don't my asking, are you saying this as somebody who has suffered from depression? If you don't want to answer that, it's fine of course. I'm just trying to understand the different perspectives on this issue. I have arrived at my own opinion partly based on my personal experience with it.

Suave · 04-20-2005, 08:10 AM

I don't remember all of the criteria (they're written in a notebook that I don't have with me), but the one that I remember it definitely not fitting (as most mental "illnesses" do not) is the existence of lesion.

Others that I do not remember so well were (vaguely) symptoms, a foreseeable conclusion, treatability (I think specifically referring to drugs). The wording is definitely off on these, and there are a couple more I believe, but the overall concepts are there.

Anyway, they're criteria actually put out by the medical association of somethingorother, which are used to identify diseases. The theory behind mental disorders and their classification as disease (or at least one of the theories) is that it allows drug companies far greater control over the treatment of the disorders, and thus guarantees more profit.

And no, I've never been diagnosed as being clinically depressed. I am, however, classified as being considerably at risk for developing or having some mental disorders, due to some tests that I've taken.

Supple Cow · 04-20-2005, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suave

I don't remember all of the criteria (they're written in a notebook that I don't have with me), but the one that I remember it definitely not fitting (as most mental "illnesses" do not) is the existence of lesion.

Others that I do not remember so well were (vaguely) symptoms, a foreseeable conclusion, treatability (I think specifically referring to drugs). The wording is definitely off on these, and there are a couple more I believe, but the overall concepts are there.

Anyway, they're criteria actually put out by the medical association of somethingorother, which are used to identify diseases. The theory behind mental disorders and their classification as disease (or at least one of the theories) is that it allows drug companies far greater control over the treatment of the disorders, and thus guarantees more profit.

And no, I've never been diagnosed as being clinically depressed. I am, however, classified as being considerably at risk for developing or having some mental disorders, due to some tests that I've taken.

I see where you're coming from now. When I say it is an illness, I am following the more general definition:

Quote:

illness

n : impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism [syn: unwellness, malady, sickness] [ant: health]

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University
Source: On-line Medical Dictionary, © 1997-98 Academic Medical Publishing & CancerWEB

Quote:

disease

n : an impairment of health or a condition of abnormal functioning

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University
Source: On-line Medical Dictionary, © 1997-98 Academic Medical Publishing & CancerWEB

For me, the issue is whether the way I am functioning is impaired by something I can control or not. I am not as concerned about what kind of sneaky advertising the drug companies may be attempting. In this thread specifically, this is my concern because I think it's unhealthy to think of it as something that enables creativity. That only encourages people who might otherwise seek treatment to try and deal with something that is something larger than they can handle alone.

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 09:09 AM

I would consider "depression" analogous to high blood pressure, in being both a symptom and a cause of illness.

And like high blood pressure (which is often a necessary functional response to another internal disorder), depression can often be a valuable functional response. That's because it can be extremely motivating. When you're in pain, your first inclination is to do something to alleviate the pain. I think that's what the function of depression is: to put you in a frame of mind in which fundamental changes are perceived as necessary.

So it becomes a "postive" motivator at the same time that it is a debilitating disease.

If there is a real causal relationship between depression per se and creativity, I would ascribe it to this motivating characteristic of depression, and nothing more. And I think the pertinent point to be made here is that of course there are many other more healthy motivators available for one seeking motivation. But that doesn't change the fact that depression (for those unlucky to have it) can be extremely motivating.

ARTelevision · 04-20-2005, 09:18 AM

i think it's a semantic stretch to call something "motivating" that typically presents as a lack of motivation. I'm looking for some value in this type of counterintuition, but I'm not seeing any.

lurkette · 04-20-2005, 09:19 AM

Yikes. So much to respond to.

Cynthetiq- I agree with you about the lows/highs thing, but there's a difference between people suffering from MDD (major depressive disorder) in which there ARE no highs, or any highs they might experience are seriously dampened; and run-of-the-mill malaise. I don't think the normal upset and sadness people experience about life ought to be eradicated, but the irrational and generally disproportionate negative affect that depressed people experienced is not the same thing. (Speaking from experience - being sad and even depressed about my brother dying is a normal process and I wouldn't want to lessen it in any way; crying every day for 3 weeks because I think I'm a failure despite all evidence to the contrary and I don't enjoy anything and see no way out and want to crawl into a hole and never come out is not something I ever want to go through again.)

This correlation thing -
are manic people more likely to be creative than the general population,

or

are creative people more likely than the general population to suffer from manic depression?

It is a critical distinction. Are depressed people creative because they're depressed (and therefore trying to express that emotion in some artistic way), or are creative people depressed because they're creative (and perhaps alienated because they can't express their vision to other people?)?

If it's the first, then there's some argument for leaving depression untreated if the person feels it's going to stifle their creative expression; however, if it's the second case, then treating the depression doesn't stifle the creativity, in fact it frees up the person to express themselves better.

We all assume that Van Gogh or Beethoven were creative because they were tortured. They produced fantastic things out of their pain and anguish; but who knows what they could have created out of sheer joy?

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 09:48 AM

Quote:

i think it's a semantic stretch to call something "motivating" that typically presents as a lack of motivation. I'm looking for some value in this type of counterintuition, but I'm not seeing any.

Think of it this way: it motivates a lot of people to act in extremely drastic ways, such as committing suicide.

raveneye · 04-20-2005, 09:50 AM

Quote:

This correlation thing -
are manic people more likely to be creative than the general population,

or

are creative people more likely than the general population to suffer from manic depression?

Statistically, there's no difference between these two. If there is a correlation, then both are true.

Supple Cow · 04-20-2005, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raveneye

Think of it this way: it motivates a lot of people to act in extremely drastic ways, such as committing suicide.

That's quite a stretch. By that logic, one could argue that being mugged or raped motivates people to act in extreme ways as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by raveneye

Statistically, there's no difference between these two. If there is a correlation, then both are true.

The question is more about whether or not it's a good idea to make that connection in our minds. Just because there's a correlation doesn't mean that there's causation. You agreed yourself that depression doesn't cause creativity. So if depression could somehow be cured, it would not necessarily mean that any correlation between it and creativity would end creativity in the formerly depressed individuals.

Do you really think that depression is something so essential to the human condition that relieving it (if we could) would make us less human? Or do you just think that there would be less creativity in the world if there were no depression?

raveneye · 04-21-2005, 09:49 AM

Quote:

The question is more about whether or not it's a good idea to make that connection in our minds.

For myself, the question is whether the connection is real or valid in the population as a whole. In other words, is it true that e.g. bipolar disorder is associated with (on average) higher creativity? If it is true (and several studies have shown it to be true), then I would say it "is a good idea" to make that connection in our minds. Simply because it's true.

If a depressed (or bipolar) individual is cured, then I would say that necessarily that person's mode of creative expression will be changed. That's unavoidable; we can't make a major change in one aspect of our lives without changing most other aspects. Whether that change is good or bad, or desirable or not, I would say is for that person him/herself to decide. And I would say the kind of treatment that the person should pursue is ultimately up to that person.

Quote:

Do you really think that depression is something so essential to the human condition that relieving it (if we could) would make us less human?

(Putting bipolar disorder aside for now) I believe that depression per se is an adaptive response in humans to certain kinds of stressful situations. It's hard to say what precisely its benefit was in the past, but its function was certainly not to increase artistic creativity as we might define that in the present (although that might be an occasional side effect in some people).

So if depression were somehow eliminated, its adaptive benefits would be eliminated as well. To me, the main benefit is the motivation to alleviate the psychological pain, preferably by changing one's life in ways that reduce the initial stressors that caused the depression in the first place. I think the loss of that benefit is the only serious consideration. So to answer the question: our humanity would certainly be different; and we would be less functional in some ways.

You could generalize the question by asking: if we could eliminate all pain, would we be less human? That would be a much more extreme loss of functionality, so extreme that very few people would survive it.

Quote:

Or do you just think that there would be less creativity in the world if there were no depression?

If the currently accepted explanation for the correlation between bipolar disorder and creativity is true, then eliminating BP per se will have very little if any effect on overall creativity. That's because the cause of the higher creativity is not BP per se, it's the joint cause of both BP and the higher creativity. However, it may not be possible to eliminate BP separately from its precursor cause.

I don't know of any demonstrated correlation of creativity with depression per se in the general population, but again, it is very difficult to change just one thing in such a complex web of interactions as the human psyche.

Quote:

That's quite a stretch. By that logic, one could argue that being mugged or raped motivates people to act in extreme ways as well.

Well yes, but it misses my point. In my personal experience, motivation to eat, sleep, and have sex were all about zero. But I was highly motivated to do other things, which ultimately caused the pain to subside. One of those things was to write music in a way that I had never done before. I'm not saying that all people are like me, just providing an example.

And again, that was the only time in my life that I would have ascribed a relationship between "mood" and creativity. As I said, the vast majority of the time there has never been any noticeable relationship.

jorgelito · 04-21-2005, 11:21 AM

In terms of creativity, I believe depression acts in a similar way as other emotions such as anger, joy. A quick look around the arts reveals a broad range of depicted emotions including depression.

So, I would think that sure, depression can be an "inspiring factor" but not neccessarily the cause of creativity.

EX: A bad break up inspires a spurned lover to write a beautiful angst ridden song. Another person bursting with love wirtes an ode to his lover. An old man coming to terms with the sunset of his life expounds upon the frailty and mortality of the human experience.

Another way to approach the "depression-creativity" binary is comparing it to drugs: If marijuana, cocaine, alcohol didn't exist (or whatever), would the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Hemingway, Van Gogh, Mozart, Hunter S. Thompson be creative and prolific in their crafts? In other words, do the drugs make the art or does the artist? Does the depression make the artist or does the artist?

Personally, I always wondered about the drug thing...

meembo · 04-21-2005, 12:37 PM

Excellent discussion in this thread. I enjoyed the Time article this last weekend -- what a great surprise to see this thread! Keep it up.

I've been diagnosed with depression for twenty years -- very long cycles of troughs. I wanted to find the "profundity" of my malady, but I never have. To me, being depressed is feeling dead to any pleasure, and there is no life at all in that.

And though Suave suggests depression is not a disease, it feels like a mental illmness to me, and it is a destructive force that has no logic to it in my life. Medicines are largely ineffective to me, and I've sought better understanding of depression for all of my adult life.

martinguerre · 04-21-2005, 10:41 PM

raveneye...i think the question might have been going to causation, and not just correlation.

otherwise...depression can motivate. it surely has pushed me in lots of ways...much of this is on account of experiencing agitated depressive episodes, what might be best explained as a form of hypomania. but even then...knowing that one is coming can push me to try to get the last out of my brain before i fall too sick, or it can bring out really different perspectives on work in progress. i dunno about anyone else...but it's a category error to say that depression is always inhibiting. now, if i had the choice...i would choose not to suffer from it. but i do get some things from it.

04-19-2005, 06:38 PM	#2 (permalink)
Seeker Getting Clearer Location: with spirit	In my opinion, depression should not be an aspired profound place of being. It is about emotion conflicting with cognitive processes. Anything looked at as profound (in art, poetry or literature) is an expression of thought or feelings and it provokes insight and questioning. It conveys a profound message to the viewer, enabeling them to understand a perspective. Depression is a disease, it varies in depth and scope for different people, and should be addressed. Depression is saying that something is wrong. Taking meds only fixes the symptoms, it does not address the core reason for the conflict. I doubt that anyone considered profound for their expressions feel special or good about it - it's a dark, nasty, horrible place to be. Note: Medication is good for those that suffer depression for biological/neurological reasons, please don't jump on me for that! __________________ To those who wander but who are not lost...* ~ Knowledge is not something you acquire, it is something you open yourself to.

04-20-2005, 04:11 AM	#3 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	IMO, there's no relationship between depression and profundity. Depression is best done away with by necessary means. __________________ create evolution

04-20-2005, 05:12 AM	#6 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Mere coincidence. (note: this is in response to raveneye - ngdawg posted her comment between us) __________________ create evolution Last edited by ARTelevision; 04-20-2005 at 05:26 AM..

04-20-2005, 05:17 AM	#7 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Depressed artist, who write depressing music are only seemingly more interesting because depressed youth can connect to the message. The teenage (read: puberty) years are tough years. Are these artists any more profound than any other... not really. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

04-20-2005, 05:39 AM	#8 (permalink)
lurkette My future is coming on Moderator Emeritus Location: east of the sun and west of the moon	If you look at it objectively, eradicating depression would be a Very Good Thing. Something like 20% of the U.S. population can be expected to suffer depression in their lifetimes. That's roughly 50 million people. That's a huge toll in terms of misery, not to mention more material things like lost wages. If you look at our greatest artists, not all of them or even most of them were depressed. What we are taking for depression or other mental illness (especially in artists) was often some kind of organic disease - like syphillis - or dementia brought on by poisoning from their paints. Van Gogh is a prime example. Just because he painted beautifully, should we advocate for lead and mercury consumption to inspire art? (Read "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk) Many of our best artists were gasp perfectly sane. They might have had troubles in their lives with which they dealt badly, or through their art, but I don't necessary think correlation=causation. Often, artists that did have depression or other mental illness were horrible at managing their own lives and died unappreciated, alienated, and broke - it was only after their deaths that they were recognized. Would one man's debilitating suffering be worth it so you can have a pretty Starry Night or whatever hanging over your sofa? I don't think one needs to be depressed to be mind-blowingly creative, to have insights into the human condition, to have a vision that you want desperately to share. __________________ "If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France

04-20-2005, 04:25 AM	#4 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	Manic depression, on the other hand, is very highly associated with creativity. Many classical composers suffered from manic depression, and did most of their creative work during the manic phase. There are lots of academic articles on this connection that I could dig up and post if anybody's interested.

04-20-2005, 05:11 AM	#5 (permalink)
ngdawg peekaboo Location: on the back, bitch	He touches on it in that article, but essentially, depression can take shape from different origins-organic, or environmental. As someone who suffered from depression caused by environmental circumstances and not from any chemical imbalance or neurological malfunction, I don't think it's possible to totally eradicate the malady from society. It takes way too many forms, causes a vast variety of physical ailments and can have varying degrees of incapacitation to the ones who suffer from it. It took several months, several physical illnesses and 3 doctors to diagnose me, then another 6 months of intense therapy. My particular type manifested itself into 'psychosomatic illness', in which the mind takes control of the body's immunity responses. Other depressive illnesses include anorexia, bulimia, self mutilation and alcohol or drug addiction. Seems to me that's an awful lot of irradication to attempt. It'd be wonderful to say that depression should be and can be made the way of smallpox. On the other hand, those of us who lived through it and got help have just a tad more knowledge of what our moods mean, what might happen should we let things go and how to work on avoiding the downward spiral. Does it feed creativity? Yes, it does, in a small way, but only if we know to use our creativity to rise above it. Does it enhance creativity? No, it can, in fact stifle it, as we slowly draw up the walls around us to hide from the experiences of life. I live by the old adage, what does not kill me makes me stronger. And I ain't dead yet!

04-20-2005, 06:21 AM	#10 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	my experience is that depression and producing stuff tend to be mutually exclusive. i have assumed for some time that the correlations of the two comes from the outside (critics, etc.) who for some reason prefer to see art production through the lens of romantic myths about art in general. but that i speaking from where i think i am now. these myths about art, about artists, often have their worst effects on younger artists, particularly those who come to what they do from outside the usual channels of training, etc.---in my experience, this population (which includes a younger version of myself--actually, this "population" might be only a younger version of myself--it is hard to know) tend to believe all kinds of goofy, debilitating things about what enables them to think and work as they do. maybe this is a function of a kind of search for authorization. maybe it is a pretext for getting fucked up. i dont know, frankly. but i remember when i was younger, for what its worth, i relied entirely on this thing called "inspiration"--about which diego rivera was right when he said that inspiration is for amatuers---i associated "inspriation" with extreme internal states---what i did musically reflected these assumptions in that the piece would not develop, but were rather one idea after another after another. the point here is that i associated particular internal states with making stuff, such as it was: it happened that my particular associations were shaped by hallucinogens and attending cultural debris rather than by depression (the brooding artists type seemed to me dull--i prefered jumping off the edge of rational communication altogether) maybe this kind of thing explains another quote, this from t.s. eliot: everyone is a poet at 18---no-one is at 40. it is more complex with bipolar disorder. a close friend is both an extraordinarily gifted artist and someone who fights with bipolar disorder--when he was younger his art production was definitely linked to cycles of the condition--partly i think because he associated the two for himself anyway, when i first met him, he was working his way out from the effects of the drug-oriented treatment regime into which he had been routed and was worried about starting to work again because of the various associations he had fashioned for himself between the condition and his work. it took some work and considerable courage (to my mind anyway) to push into this knot and seperate the two (production from bipolar phases).... i think that underneath all this is the change that seems to me necessary for someone to move from being a younger artist to being one that might be able to keep going and developing for the longer haul---for the latter, it seems that a coherent process has to be developed, where the former might not see the need for a process in the same way. as for the question of "profundity"---i have to say that i do not know what this means. i dont what its characteristics are, nor do i know how the notion of the "profound" can operate as a motor for what anyone does. for example, it does not seem to me particularly "profound" to work out that much of the reality folk live through is a type of illusion insofar as it is wholly shaped by the dominant ideology of the time. but working something of this out by seeing it during an lsd voyage when i was 19 certainly seemed profound. i remember wanting to write down some of the Deep Thoughts that were occurring to me around this insight. i found a notebook and began doing things in to to catch the Insights that felt like they were raining down on me--then i wandered away and did other equally profound things, which probably involved looking at trees or listening to "bike" for the 30th time--i found the notebook the next day and saw that i had drawn a squirrel. there was a big arrow drawn next to it. i guess i wanted to be sure that i remembered that i had found the Secret of the Universe, and that this was It. all this profundity stuff seems mostly about things that will later embarass you. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-20-2005, 06:44 AM	#11 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	Since roachboy offered some personal history, let me do the same. I don't have any major mental illness (although my wife might dispute that statement . . . ) but I do consider myself to have definite, noticeable schizoid tendencies, and these have been there for as long as I can remember. I would also consider myself very creative (musically at least), although I have never had any sort of psychological evaluation on that basis. But I have made a decent living for many years performing purely improvisational piano, i.e. sitting down and just playing, for hours at a time. I agree with roachboy that the idea of "inspiration" doesn't apply much. It doesn't matter what mood I'm in, although I seem to be much more creative around 8-10PM than any other time of day (at least that's my subjective impression, who knows if it's really true). But no matter what my mood, if I have a gig I can pull it out. Where it comes from, I don't know, but it's there no matter the "mood" or the "inspiration". The main exception to this is that during the weeks after my brother was killed I was far more productive than ever before in my life. The reason is that I had a tremendous need to create something valuable to replace his loss and honor him. So I think loss and grief can create a mental state that is very conducive to creativity. But if I were to "explain" my personal creativity in general terms, I would say that mood is irrelevant, but that there is definitely a connection between my schizoid-ness and my creativity. To me the two feel like different facets of the same thing; they are both fundamentally important in how I react to and view the world. And they both seem to be always there, nothing can get rid of them. Whether I would be equally creative without the other thing, or more creative, I don't know. But to me they definitely feel like they are fundamentally, at their base, the same.

04-20-2005, 06:44 AM	#12 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	roachboy nails another one. thanks, my friend! I'm aware of the research and the pathology. It's interesting but illuminative of nothing more than socio-cultural reality and circumstance. Artists are pursuing something that is not generally highly valued by society - especially in its developmental stages. This is sensible as society is geared toward material efficiency and tangibly valuable productivity. __________________ create evolution

04-20-2005, 06:56 AM	#13 (permalink)
warrrreagl pinche vato Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton	Many creative people that I know also eat carrots. Perhaps that's the source of their creativity, too. Correlation does not equal cause-and-effect. __________________ Living is easy with eyes closed.

04-20-2005, 07:06 AM	#14 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	kay jamison, a pyschiatrist at Johns Hopkins who has written extensively on mental illness, has a book called "touched by fire" that deals with this question. worth a read if you think there's nothing to do with artistic spirit and mental illness. it's clear to me that there is a link, but that that link doesn't mean anything about treatment. it's not a ban on getting treated, nor do i think we can reasonably require treatment of everyone. i have been unresponsive to medication evet since they started trying....and one of the big side effects was for my creativity to be greatly dulled. and hell...these are just the SSRIS. lightwights by comparision to other pyschotropic medication. taking these drugs is a serious choice, and i place a lot of weight on the words choice. it may be what needs to happen to save a life...but othertimes it may be too much of a cost to someone's sense of self. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16

04-20-2005, 07:15 AM	#15 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Yes, my interpretation of the correlation was stated above. Engaging in an activity which may be described as anti-social in many ways leads to things like feelings of rejection, self-doubt, and anger - symptoms of depression. Conversely, people with these types of predilections will often choose anti-social means of expression, behaviors, and lifestyles. This is a personal interpretation of the book referenced above and also the research on the subject. As it's moot, it's certainly discussable here. But IMO it's not the kind of thing that really adds much to our knowledge of anything except the way certain groups of individuals internalize and externalize problematic relationships with mainstream culture. __________________ create evolution

04-20-2005, 07:17 AM	#16 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	without incredible lows, how could one have incredible highs? eliminating depression from individuals then how would any one know and understand and appreciate the real joys of life?

04-20-2005, 07:22 AM	#18 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	thanks for posting the above, martin: it crosses with the major experience of those around me who have struggled with depression. bipolar disoder, etc. and who are also artists: the problem becomes, for each of them, the dulling effects (at the least) of the psychotropics---they find themselves "better" because they feel nothing beyond a kind of sustained dialtone. THAT takes care of production. hell, that took care of most other aspects of their functional lives as well. the cause of this seems to be an unintended consequence of the present hmo-dominated mental health care system: for all of the folk i know who found themselves in this type of place, psychotropics were handed out as if they were pez--it is like there is a de facto assumption that the drugs themselves are a kind of magic bullet--even as any of the providers of these drugs wold say the opposite were you to ask them. (it is not that different from academic institutions assuming that graduate students all have trust funds--it is absurd, they would deny it, but at the system level, it operates as a kind of enabling assumption) they could get the psychotropic pez, but not anything even close to an adequate therapeutic function..and nothing even close to micromanagement of dosage. this has flattened the production of everyone i know who has struggled with depression or other disorders that these days are treated with psychotropics---the psychotropics themselves, administered in this manner, as a function of this particular system of mental health care in some cases, it has taken folk years to work out from under this. . __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-20-2005, 07:27 AM	#19 (permalink)
Supple Cow Americow, the Beautiful Location: Washington, D.C.	raveneye, I see how it can seem that the two are coming from the same place, but this is exactly what the article I posted describes. I don't doubt that you experienced depression after your brother was killed, but the fact that you felt a great inspiration and were very productive likely had more to do with the fact that you had a lot of strong feelings for your brother to begin with. Like you said, you felt the need to replace his loss and honor him... that's not depression making you creative, it's a situation that made it an appropriate time for you to express something you already felt at the same time as causing you depression. EDIT: To clarify why I personally decided to post this article, I was more interested in the social aspect of what he describes. I don't actually think it's very realistic to say we'll be able to eradicate depression very soon, so that point is moot to me. I also realize that anti-depressants alter behavior in ways other than simply reducing depression so I can see why, if they did lead to an effective cure, some people would choose to battle with the depression without the meds. But that, to me, is the same issue of choosing medical treatment as in the case of choosing to have (or not have) a DNR order. Why do arguments about creativity belong in discussions of treating this illness? I say they don't. __________________ "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." (Michael Jordan) Last edited by Supple Cow; 04-20-2005 at 07:41 AM.. Reason: A lot more was added to the discussion as I was writing this.

04-20-2005, 07:43 AM	#20 (permalink)
Suave Twitterpated Location: My own little world (also Canada)	Depression is a not a disease. It fails to meet all of the criteria that define a disease. __________________ "Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

04-20-2005, 07:45 AM	#21 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	Supple, I agree with what you're saying. But I think it is useful to separate out several meanings of what we're trying to get at with "cause and effect" which can be extremely complicated. For example, the grief I felt was very motivating. It had to be dealt with somehow. I don't know how other people generally deal with it, but I couldn't just sit down and feel the agony. The agony, if it makes sense, "demanded" that I do something. Yes, all the other ingredients were already there, as you point out. But the agony sort of lit them on fire. I don't know how to really explain it. So I agree that the depression didn't "cause" the creativity, in the sense that it was "sufficient" (no way was it sufficient, that would be ridiculous). But it may have been "necessary" in a sort of probabilistic sense, in that without it, all those ingredients would still have been sitting there (most likely), and wouldn't have been assembled into musical pieces. So something can be a "motivating factor" even though that same something, at the same time, is very debilitating. And it was debilitating. Without the agony, I might have been able to be more creative, but the emotional, motivating, overwhelming need to express my very strong feelings, might simply not existed, so the end result may have been nothing at all. This is a complex subject because it is difficult if not impossible to eliminate one thing from the "causal network" without eliminating a lot of other things.

04-20-2005, 08:10 AM	#24 (permalink)
Suave Twitterpated Location: My own little world (also Canada)	I don't remember all of the criteria (they're written in a notebook that I don't have with me), but the one that I remember it definitely not fitting (as most mental "illnesses" do not) is the existence of lesion. Others that I do not remember so well were (vaguely) symptoms, a foreseeable conclusion, treatability (I think specifically referring to drugs). The wording is definitely off on these, and there are a couple more I believe, but the overall concepts are there. Anyway, they're criteria actually put out by the medical association of somethingorother, which are used to identify diseases. The theory behind mental disorders and their classification as disease (or at least one of the theories) is that it allows drug companies far greater control over the treatment of the disorders, and thus guarantees more profit. And no, I've never been diagnosed as being clinically depressed. I am, however, classified as being considerably at risk for developing or having some mental disorders, due to some tests that I've taken. __________________ "Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato Last edited by Suave; 04-20-2005 at 08:12 AM..

04-20-2005, 09:09 AM	#26 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	I would consider "depression" analogous to high blood pressure, in being both a symptom and a cause of illness. And like high blood pressure (which is often a necessary functional response to another internal disorder), depression can often be a valuable functional response. That's because it can be extremely motivating. When you're in pain, your first inclination is to do something to alleviate the pain. I think that's what the function of depression is: to put you in a frame of mind in which fundamental changes are perceived as necessary. So it becomes a "postive" motivator at the same time that it is a debilitating disease. If there is a real causal relationship between depression per se and creativity, I would ascribe it to this motivating characteristic of depression, and nothing more. And I think the pertinent point to be made here is that of course there are many other more healthy motivators available for one seeking motivation. But that doesn't change the fact that depression (for those unlucky to have it) can be extremely motivating.

04-20-2005, 09:18 AM	#27 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	i think it's a semantic stretch to call something "motivating" that typically presents as a lack of motivation. I'm looking for some value in this type of counterintuition, but I'm not seeing any. __________________ create evolution

04-20-2005, 09:19 AM	#28 (permalink)
lurkette My future is coming on Moderator Emeritus Location: east of the sun and west of the moon	Yikes. So much to respond to. Cynthetiq- I agree with you about the lows/highs thing, but there's a difference between people suffering from MDD (major depressive disorder) in which there ARE no highs, or any highs they might experience are seriously dampened; and run-of-the-mill malaise. I don't think the normal upset and sadness people experience about life ought to be eradicated, but the irrational and generally disproportionate negative affect that depressed people experienced is not the same thing. (Speaking from experience - being sad and even depressed about my brother dying is a normal process and I wouldn't want to lessen it in any way; crying every day for 3 weeks because I think I'm a failure despite all evidence to the contrary and I don't enjoy anything and see no way out and want to crawl into a hole and never come out is not something I ever want to go through again.) This correlation thing - are manic people more likely to be creative than the general population, or are creative people more likely than the general population to suffer from manic depression? It is a critical distinction. Are depressed people creative because they're depressed (and therefore trying to express that emotion in some artistic way), or are creative people depressed because they're creative (and perhaps alienated because they can't express their vision to other people?)? If it's the first, then there's some argument for leaving depression untreated if the person feels it's going to stifle their creative expression; however, if it's the second case, then treating the depression doesn't stifle the creativity, in fact it frees up the person to express themselves better. We all assume that Van Gogh or Beethoven were creative because they were tortured. They produced fantastic things out of their pain and anguish; but who knows what they could have created out of sheer joy? __________________ "If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France

04-21-2005, 11:21 AM	#33 (permalink)
jorgelito All important elusive independent swing voter... Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia	In terms of creativity, I believe depression acts in a similar way as other emotions such as anger, joy. A quick look around the arts reveals a broad range of depicted emotions including depression. So, I would think that sure, depression can be an "inspiring factor" but not neccessarily the cause of creativity. EX: A bad break up inspires a spurned lover to write a beautiful angst ridden song. Another person bursting with love wirtes an ode to his lover. An old man coming to terms with the sunset of his life expounds upon the frailty and mortality of the human experience. Another way to approach the "depression-creativity" binary is comparing it to drugs: If marijuana, cocaine, alcohol didn't exist (or whatever), would the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Hemingway, Van Gogh, Mozart, Hunter S. Thompson be creative and prolific in their crafts? In other words, do the drugs make the art or does the artist? Does the depression make the artist or does the artist? Personally, I always wondered about the drug thing...

04-21-2005, 12:37 PM	#34 (permalink)
meembo Junkie Location: Connecticut	Excellent discussion in this thread. I enjoyed the Time article this last weekend -- what a great surprise to see this thread! Keep it up. I've been diagnosed with depression for twenty years -- very long cycles of troughs. I wanted to find the "profundity" of my malady, but I never have. To me, being depressed is feeling dead to any pleasure, and there is no life at all in that. And though Suave suggests depression is not a disease, it feels like a mental illmness to me, and it is a destructive force that has no logic to it in my life. Medicines are largely ineffective to me, and I've sought better understanding of depression for all of my adult life. __________________ less I say, smarter I am

04-21-2005, 10:41 PM	#35 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	raveneye...i think the question might have been going to causation, and not just correlation. otherwise...depression can motivate. it surely has pushed me in lots of ways...much of this is on account of experiencing agitated depressive episodes, what might be best explained as a form of hypomania. but even then...knowing that one is coming can push me to try to get the last out of my brain before i fall too sick, or it can bring out really different perspectives on work in progress. i dunno about anyone else...but it's a category error to say that depression is always inhibiting. now, if i had the choice...i would choose not to suffer from it. but i do get some things from it. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16