Study looks at creativity link with mental illness

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talkhealth
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by talkhealth on Fri Oct 19, 2012 12:09 pm

Study looks at creativity link with mental illness

‘Creativity is often part of a mental illness according to a study of more than a million people’, BBC News has reported.

The image of the tortured artist or the visionary genius beset by personal demons has long been part of our popular culture. But are ‘creatives’ really more prone to mental illness than say, bricklayers or book-keepers?

In an attempt to answer the question, researchers used Swedish health records to identify more than a million people diagnosed with various mental illnesses. They compared the occurrence of creative occupations among these people with that of a matched sample of ‘healthy’ people.

Read more on this story on the NHS Choices website - http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/10October/P ... lness.aspx#
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Able Scribe
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by Able Scribe on Sat Oct 27, 2012 11:06 pm

Re: Study looks at creativity link with mental illness

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7037314.stm
Stuart here has the formula for combatting stigma and reaching T to C's goals and targets: Invest in us so we can overcome our squalor and Shine like Everest! In our hands the disparagement of Stigma would be displaced with a dazzling display of creative energy to transform our landscape into a brilliant display of achievement to bowl our critics over! Give More Opportunities to us with Lived Experience!

Able Scribe
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by Able Scribe on Tue Nov 06, 2012 10:14 am

Re: Study looks at creativity link with mental illness

Anyone who has lived with symptoms of schizophrenia for a considerable length of time will recognize the perspectives given here: the diagnosable symptoms of sz may be incurably lodged within us and May be a part of our make up, but that does not in itself present a grim or hopeless predicament. This is because our disabilities are also our Attributes. Maybe unwittingly, the psychiatrist's diagnosis undermines these attributes and sets them in a grim light. But really it is a matter of impact, intensity and degree, whether we languish in despair or set about engaging the symptoms as evidence of rare qualities which mark us out as having gifts to be expressed and applied creatively.

What I am saying is: with the right help, a low maintenance dosage of appropriate medication to reduce the intensity of symptom's extremes -one which does not pile on a burden of disability which excessive medicating is apt to do- and some vocational and training guidance, we can be the creative artists that nature intended us to be, using our gifts to master the medium which is best suited to our attributes.

My 'pathway to progress' has been photography. I find that a modicum of seeing things which 'are not there' enables me to apply a creative imagination, to use my mind's eye to envisage the optimal conditions to develop an awareness of the imaging possibilities of any scene I encounter and with my best endeavour, maybe reproduce that on camera.

Well that is photography and visual hallucinations. What then of reconstructing the Dramatist and Playwright, the writer and novelist from auditory hallucinations? Musicians, composers, singers and lyric writers are also only a step away from the same level of creative attribute and giftedness.

The lesson from this is never to underestimate the extent to which we all have gifts to express and with the right opportunities, can re-emerge as part of our restitution after the excesses of ill-health have run their course. Facilitators who work in mental health, please take special note!

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