Creativity, Mental Disorder, and the Family: is creativity an advantage or a genetic flaw?

Background: Discussions in popular culture as well as the themes in some films and books tend to suggest that psychosis may be associated with artistic inspiration. As evidence, the proponents of this standpoint have claimed that there is a rather frequent occurrence of mental disorder among artists, musicians and other creative persons. This paper represents an attempt to sift fact from fiction in this matter and come up with an evidence-based perspective. Method: The history of study of the mental health associations of creativity is summarised. The literature is reviewed and the most important among the recent work on the subject are highlighted. There have not been a lot of quantitative studies on this subject, which also has the effect of eliciting strong emotions among the protagonists of different standpoints. Conclusion: The weight of evidence points to a definite association between creative talent and affective illness. It would appear that creativity find its best expression when the illness is well controlled, as well as in members of the same family who are not actively ill. Nigerian Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 6 (2) 2008: pp. 51-53