Creativity in familial bipolar disorder

Studies have demonstrated relationships between creativity and bipolar disorder (BD) in individuals, and suggested familial transmission of both creativity and BD. However, to date, there have been no studies specifically examining creativity in offspring of bipolar parents and clarifying mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of creativity. We compared creativity in bipolar parents and their offspring with BD and bipolar offspring with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with healthy control adults and their children. 40 adults with BD, 20 bipolar offspring with BD, 20 bipolar offspring with ADHD, and 18 healthy control parents and their healthy control children completed the Barron–Welsh Art Scale (BWAS), an objective measure of creativity. Adults with BD compared to controls scored significantly (120%) higher on the BWAS Dislike subscale, and non-significantly (32%) higher on the BWAS Total scale. Mean BWAS Dislike subscale scores were also significantly higher in offspring with BD (107% higher) and offspring with ADHD (91% higher) than in healthy control children. Compared to healthy control children, offspring with BD had 67% higher and offspring with ADHD had 40% higher BWAS Total scores, but these differences failed to reach statistical significance when adjusted for age. In the bipolar offspring with BD, BWAS Total scores were negatively correlated with duration of illness. The results of this study support an association between BD and creativity and contribute to a better understanding of possible mechanisms of transmission of creativity in families with genetic susceptibility for BD. This is the first study to show that children with and at high risk for BD have higher creativity than healthy control children. The finding in children and in adults was related to an enhanced ability to experience and express dislike of simple and symmetric images. This could reflect increased access to negative affect, which could yield both benefits with respect to providing affective energy for creative achievement, but also yield liabilities with respect to quality of interpersonal relationships or susceptibility to depression.     

Can Creativity be Nurtured in Young Children?

Yes, certainly, it can be nurtured using the appropriate creative environment: (a) schools with continuous enrichment of their environment; (b) creative programmes for developing creative thinking; and (c) creative teachers and creative ways of teaching. It can be concluded then that interaction with the everyday creative environment, is the most powerful possibility of nurturing creativity in individuals, and especially in children.     

The passions of maturity: Morality and creativity in later life

Studies of moral development have concentrated on children andadolescents rather than older adults. Yet people continue to face andreflect on moral dilemmas throughout the life-course. This articleexamines how a group of older women and men from a rural New Yorkcommunity deal with issues of meaning and purpose in their mature years,and compares their experiences with those of elders from India. Througha series of ethnographic vignettes, three American approaches to themoral nature of late life are explored: viz., deep involvement inart, in public service, and in self-exploration. Rural people discoveredmany forms of passion, ranging from the personal, professional andpolitical to the ethical and expressive. In their attempts to negotiateboth passion and purpose, these individuals also found themselvescontending with major contradictions in their own culture, especiallythe tensions between self fulfillment and social responsibility, dutyand creativity, and personal meaning and reciprocity. Their sense ofpurpose is compared with that of sannyasins, older spiritual seekersfrom India, whose goals stressed a very distinct set of cultural ideals.     

Self-reported creativity in bipolar disorder: prevalence,types and associated outcomes in mania versus hypomania

Background

Bipolar (BP) disorder has been linked to creativity following investigation of prominent artists and controlled trials of creativity in BP disorder patients. However, it is unclear whether creativity is differentially expressed across the BP I and BP II subtypes.

Methods

219 patients (aged 19–63 years) diagnosed with BP disorder by clinical interview and DSM-IV criteria were asked whether they tended to be more creative during hypo/manic episodes, and answered five questions about personality styles associated with creativity. Qualitative analyses were performed on a smaller subset of 69 BP patients (n=19 BP I, n=50 BP II) who provided written responses of the types of creative activities engaged in when hypo/manic and any perceived advantages or disadvantages of their creative pursuits.

Results

82% of BP patients affirmed being creative when hypo/manic, with comparable results for the BP I and BP II subtypes (84% and 81% respectively). Both BP subtypes engaged mostly in writing, painting, work or business ideas and ‘other’ forms of art; however BP II patients were more likely to draw and be musical. Both subgroups reported the consequences of feeling good, being productive or quitting their project. BP I patients were more likely to overspend during their creative highs while BP II patients were more likely to experience improved focus and clarity. BP patients affirming creative highs were significantly more likely to report creative personality styles more generally outside of a mood episode.

Limitations

BP patients' self-reported creative activities were not retrospectively judged for quality or originality and so may reflect common creative abilities rather than exceptional quality. The impact of depressive episodes on creativity was not assessed. Uneven sample sizes in the BP I and BP II subgroups may have compromised statistical power.

Conclusion

Creativity during hypo/manic episodes was extremely common in both BP subtypes. While some nuances in activity type and outcomes were observed, no significant creative phenotype specific to BP I or BP II disorder emerged.     

网络游戏成瘾高中生创造力倾向及其人格、家庭影响因素

目的 了解网络游戏成瘾住院高中生的创造力倾向及影响因素.方法 采用临床访谈法结合问卷调查法对网络游戏成瘾住院患者(包括70例高中生和65例初中生)和70例在校高中生进行研究,研究工具包括网络成瘾临床诊断标准和威廉斯创造倾向量表,并对住院高中生组进行了父母养育方式评定量表、家庭环境量表和16项人格因素问卷调查.结果 网络游戏成瘾住院高中生组创造倾向总分及冒险性、好奇心、想象力和挑战性各因子分[分别是(109.60±11.12)分,(23.77±2.97)分,(31.51±4.29)分,(26.06±3.57)分,(28.26±2.87)分]均低于初中生组[分别是(111.35±12.00)分,(24.14±3.20)分,( 32.25±4.26)分,(26.35±4.25)分,(28.62±2.79)分],但组间差异无统计学意义.网络游戏成瘾住院高中生组与在校高中生组[总分(121.27±7.68)分,冒险性(26.17±2.30)分,好奇心(35.80±3.11),想象力(29.66±3.28),挑战性(29.64±2.34)]相比创造倾向总分及各因子分均低,二者差异有统计学意义(P＜0.01).多元逐步回归分析发现:外向型人格以及家庭环境中的知识文化性进入回归方程(回归系数分别是0.32和0.56),并且均对创造倾向具有正向预测作用.结论 网络游戏成瘾可能影响了高中生创造力的发展.外向型人格特征以及崇尚知识文化的家庭环境有利于网络游戏成瘾住院高中生创造倾向的发展.     

Lateral thinkers are not so laterally minded: Hemispheric asymmetry,interaction, and creativity

The biological basis of creativity remains a topic of contention. A long-held view suggests that whereas the left hemisphere is intelligent and analytic, the right hemisphere is the source of all creativity. Consequently, activating the right hemisphere should enhance creative thinking, prompting a plethora of popular books hawking a right hemisphere solution to topics ranging from drawing, to money management, to sex. More recently, an alternate proposal has suggested that creativity is not a lateralised function; instead, creativity is argued to stem from the interaction and integration of information across both the left and right hemispheres. According to this view, individuals with greater interhemispheric communication and/or less-lateralised brains will evidence enhanced creative ability. This paper reviews the neural basis of creativity to determine whether creativity stems from activation of the right hemisphere, or from the interaction of both hemispheres. The relationship between creativity and psychopathology is also examined, evaluating the evidence for a causal link between disorders such as schizophrenia, hemispheric activation, and enhanced creativity. Although the research reviewed indicates greater right hemisphere activity during creative tasks, the interaction between many varied, often distant, cortical regions across both the left and right hemispheres is also a crucial component of creativity. This interaction facilitates the integration of a variety of separate cognitive abilities, fostering creative thinking. As such, creativity is better conceptualised as a distributed, rather than a purely lateralised, function; more lateral thinkers have less lateralised brains.     

Systems in Conflict: Labeling Youth Creativity as Mental Illness

ABSTRACT

Highly creative children and adolescents often behave in ways that may appear to be symptoms of mental illness. Multiple systems, including family, school, and mental health professionals, may unknowingly fail to recognize and nurture the creative side of these young people. This article presents a review of literature about the characteristics of creative people that may overlap some symptoms of mental illness. Case studies introduce a new therapeutic approach that embraces youth creativity, invites a positive meaning for symptoms, removes the stigma of a mental illness diagnosis, and improves the young persons' self-esteem and behavior.     

PBL教学对法医学生创造力的影响

培养创造性法医学人才是司法体制改革的需要。PBL教学为创造性医学人才培养提供了一种新的模式。该研究采用创造力倾向量表调查了法医学生的创造力倾向特征,通过相关分析发现PBL教学可促进法医学生的创造力倾向及其想像力、挑战性和好奇心维度得分的增加,呈正相关关系。结果表明PBL教学可有效促进法医学生创造力的发展。     

Le processus d’admission dans un centre thérapeutique pour adolescents comme temps de créativité et de (re)mobilisation psychique

Adolescence involves a necessary psychological effort linked to the maturation of the individual who is confronted with, among other things, the transformation of bonds, the question of sexual identity, relationships with the law and death as well as forbidden enjoyment. This “adolescent-process” is infiltrated by the questioning of the meaning of existence including a possible destiny. The notions of time, both past and future, confront the young person leaving childhood and are inherently centered on the current moment. Various pitfalls of an intrapsychic and/or contextual nature can emerge and generate disturbances such that the teenager is unable to continue without benefiting for a while from an adapted therapeutic accompaniment. This, if it can regularly be conceived in an ambulatory way, gains in certain situations by taking place within a specialized residential framework. The article notes four dimensions which represent essential issues of adolescence. These inevitably raise questions when they do not constitute the core of psychopathologic disturbances. It is in these situations that we meet with the young people and their families who envisage a stay in our Therapeutic Center for Teenagers (CThA). We discuss the interest of the admission procedure by suggesting it be understood as a time of creativity and of (re) mobilization.