Week of December 5, 2001

Images of the tormented artist, poet, painter and composer are familiar… but is there really a link between madness and art? Guests include: actress Margot Kidder; Dr. Louis Sass, a professor of clinical psychology and comparative literature at Rutgers University; Dr. David Schuldberg, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Montana in Missoula; Dr. Richard Kogan, a psychiatrist and concert pianist; Linda Gray Sexton, writer and daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton. With commentary by John Hockenberry.

Host, Dr. Fred Goodwin opens the show with an essay on the subject of madness and art. In his essay, Dr. Goodwin asks whether historical figures with signs of mental illness can really be accurately diagnosed by researches today. In his opinion, yes, assuming that researchers are basing their diagnoses on evidence such as hospitalizations, suicide attempts and completions, personal writings and direct observations. He goes on to add that these diagnoses can help the public to understand the conflicted psyches that produce great art.

While Dr. Goodwin recognizes the link between madness and creativity, he dose not want to romanticize this link or the mental illness associated with creativity. The reality is that these are deadly diseases that do kill.

Dr. Goodwin concludes that in his own work with manic-depressive patients he has found that helping them to get in touch with their own creative gift can often lead to the patient’s acceptance of their illness and the possibility of turning a part of their illness into achievement.

Margot Kidder is primarily known as the actor that played Lois Lane in the Superman movies. She joins Dr. Goodwin as our first guest to discuss her very public manic break that occurred in 1996 and how her manic depression has affected her life as an actor.

Ms. Kidder begins by detailing the psychotic break she experienced in 1996. She began to “speed up” in her mind… her thoughts were racing and she was linking ideas and thoughts that she had never seen as associated before. As her brain began to move faster and faster, she stopped eating and sleeping. She became psychotic and delusional to the point of believing that the CIA was after her and that her ex-husband wanted her dead. Ms. Kidder ran to LA hoping to escape the CIA and was found wandering the city after several days when she was thought missing.

Ms. Kidder says that her hypomanic, or slightly speeded-up phases, do help her in her ability to create. She is able to make connections between ideas and events in life that she never sees while stable. She feels as if this higher level of input and connectedness takes her to a third level of insight where she is seeing and feeling things that never occurred to her before. This “lighted-up-ness” of her brain and this convergence of disconnected thoughts makes it seem that everything in her mind is accessible at once. This special place, Kidder suggests, is where great art, math and science come from.

Manic-depressive illness, Kidder claims, is replete with paradox. She goes on to define paradox as being where two opposing things come together and make one truth, and suggests that this is the space where great art is made. When acting, Kidder says, she becomes centered and available to input from all aspects of life. She lives in the moment and is able to play her part and give the other actors what they need to play theirs. In a hypomanic state, Kidder says, all of this is available. Her hypomanic state helps her to absorb contradictory input and express it in her role.

Ms. Kidder believes that if she didn’t have manic depression, she wouldn’t have had the need to act. She says that she needed a space where she could express her confusing mess of emotions; acting allowed her to cry, to express grief and also to express a sense of ecstasy about life.

Ms. Kidder is now playing character roles and is writing a book for manic-depressive patients. Her book details her own program of treatment and provides treatment suggestions for other manic-depressives. Ms. Kidder can be reached through her web site at www.graphicpizazz.com/margotkidder.

Our next guests are Dr. Louis Sass, a professor of clinical psychology and comparative literature at Rutgers University and Dr. David Schuldberg, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Montana in Missoula.

Dr. Sass is the author of “Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature and Thought.” Dr. David Schuldberg's research includes work on creativity and psychological health.

Dr. Sass and Dr. Schuldberg join Dr. Goodwin to discuss the science behind the link between art and madness. Dr. Sass begins by telling us that yes, there really is a link between mental illness and creative ability. Empirical research has demonstrated this link and anecdotal evidence supports it. Dr. Schuldberg adds that the relationship between art and madness is complicated and that some specific disorders can be linked with certain types of creativity.

Dr. Sass goes on to definite creativity as something that is perceived by society and is dependent on an audience. The creative product must be innovative and novel in order to be considered as creativity. In the 19th Century, Dr. Sass goes on to say, the tradition of the romantic poet was the paradigm of a creative human. Dr. Schuldberg adds that one can measure creativity by how well recognized the artist is. Unfortunately, however, many creative achievements are not recognized during the artist’s lifetime.

Schizophrenia and depression are the mental illness most linked to creativity in the historical context says Dr. Schuldberg. But work by scientists like Dr. Ruth Richards and Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison in the 1970’s and 1980’s has indicated that there is also a link between manic-depressive illness and creative ability. Dr. Schuldberg adds that creativity has also been linked to anti-social behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, narcissistic behavior and impulsivity.

In regard to the association between manic-depressive illness and creativity, Dr. Sass tells us that the creative spark often originates in the patients hypomanic phase. In other words, the phase of manic-depressive illness where the patient is highly energized, they are having quick mental associations and experience an intensity of emotion. In addition, they are often seeking the approval of others. Dr. Schuldberg goes on to tell us that the link between depressive illness and creativity stems from the sensibility of perception and the existential view that depressed individuals often have.

Dr. Sass tells us that poets like William Blake, Lord Byron, Shelly and Keats all suffered from manic-depressive illness and that more recently the poet Robert Lowell and the writer William Styron have been linked to depressive illness. Most often, artists who focus on emotions and feelings in their work are manic-depressive whereas artists who remove themselves from the world are more often associated with schizophrenia. Creative people with schizophrenia often experience a sense of alienation from the self, from their bodies and from the world. They become hyper-self-conscious but are able to step outside themselves, allowing a more cerebral form of creativity. Examples of this include philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein who was a schizoid individual and the mathematician, economist and Nobel Laureate John Nash.

Dr. Goodwin asks whether it’s possible that in some instances treatment for these mental illnesses may some how blunt the artist’s creativity. Dr. Schuldberg replies that this is more common in patients with manic-depressive illness than with schizophrenic patients.

Dr. Sass can be reached at the Graduate School of Psychology; Rutgers Univeristy; 152 Frelinghuysen Road; Piscataway, NJ 08854, or on the web at www.rutgers.edu. Dr. Schuldberg can be reached at the Department of Psychology; The University of Montanta; Missoula, Montana 59812-1584, or on the web at www.umt.edu.

After a short break we return with our next guest, Dr. Richard Kogan, a practicing psychiatrist in New York and a staffer at New York Presbyterian Hospital – Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Kogan is also a concert pianist and the winner of the Kosciuszko Foundation’s prestigious Chopin Competition.

The Infinite Mind’s Bill Lichtenstein spoke with Dr. Kogan at his home in Manhattan about the great German composer Robert Schumann. Schumann was born into a family riddled with mental illness… two close relatives died by suicide, both of his parents suffered from depression, and his son spent many years in an insane asylum. Schumann himself suffered from episodic depressions and manias most of his adult life – later diagnosed as manic depression. He died in an insane asylum in 1856 at the age of 46.

Dr. Kogan tells us that Schumann was most productive as a composer during his hypo-manic phases. He produced voluminously during his up years and didn’t compose at all during his depressed years. Dr. Kogan believes that Schumann’s manic-depressive illness was vital to his creativity and that it was his access to moods and experiences that helped him to write. At the age of 25, in 1835, Schumann composed Carnival. This symphony is an excellent example of how Schumann’s illness was expressed in his compositions.

In Carnival, Schumann used four notes that corresponded to letters in his name and in the name of his lover’s hometown, to build twenty-one mood pieces. He used these four notes to provide the outline of these pieces; each piece explored a different mood or emotional theme. Dr. Kogan plays a couple of these pieces on his Steinway piano so that the audience can really hear what he is illustrating. What Schumann is doing, Dr. Kogan says, is basing his work on a musical pun. Patients with manic-depressive illness are known for an inappropriate amount of punning and jocularity, generated by their hypomania.

Schumann said when he was 20 years old, that the thoughts rushed through his head so quickly and that if he could write them all down he would have published over 100 symphonies by that time. Carnival is full of fast manic music that feels like it’s rushing and flying and full of more somber introspective work. It is thought that these two types of work represent the cyclical nature of Schumann’s music. It is up with the manic phases and slower with the depressive phases.

Dr. Kogan tells us that while having manic-depressive illness gave Schumann advantages creatively, he suffered immensely due to his illness. He died far earlier than he would have in the 21st Century under current treatments. Dr. Kogan can be reached through New York Presbyterian Hospital – Cornell Medical Center at www.nyp.org.

The Pulitzer Prize winning poet Anne Sexton is known as one of the first autobiographical or “confessional” poets of the late 1950’s. She documented and revealed her life in the poems she wrote. Much of her work was about her family relationships and about her struggle with the emotional highs and lows that characterized her life. In 1974, after many suicide attempts and hospitalizations, Anne Sexton’s manic depression got the better of her. She took her own life at the age of 45.

Next, The Infinite Mind’s Dempsey Rice speaks with Anne’s oldest daughter, Linda Gray Sexton about the link between Anne Sexton’s poetry and her manic depression. Linda is a novelist and a non-fiction writer… and the executor of her mother’s estate. She is the author of, “Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton.” Linda believes that her own struggle with manic depression is linked to her ability to write and that her struggle with the disease mirrors some of the pain Anne Sexton felt.

Linda begins by telling us that her mother has been diagnosed by current psychiatrists as having manic-depressive illness, although she was never diagnosed during her own lifetime. Anne used to talk with Linda about how incapacitating her depression was. Linda has learned that many of Anne’s fans like to think of Anne as having a blue mood, sitting at her desk with a glass of scotch and writing away, but Linda tells us that her depressions were never like that. Her mother Anne’s depressions were oppressive. Anne was unable to write during her severe depressions and during her fully manic periods. It was only during her more balanced states that she was able to be productive.

Linda then reads an excerpt from her book, “Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton,” that includes her own description of a Thanksgiving afternoon spent wither her mother and a piece from Anne’s poem, “The Fortress,” which she wrote about that same afternoon.

Dempsey Rice notes that Linda Sexton’s writing and Anne Sexton’s poetry reflect one another and asks Linda if she thinks if either them would have been as successful had they not had manic-depressive illness. Linda replies that that one question is really the question of her life, “Does one have to be insane to be creative?” Throughout her career Linda has questioned weather she was ‘nuts’ enough to be a good writer. She continues to struggle with this question today.

Linda believes that her mother’s manic-depression gave Anne a sharper eye and sensitivity… access to things a ‘well’ person couldn’t have been able to access and use. Linda believes that her own manic-depression also affects her own ability to write. When she is inundated with depression or with manic she is completely unproductive, but when she is balanced she can write more and write well.

Linda Gray Sexton can be reached care of Janklow & Nesbitt Literary Agency; 445 Park Avenue, 13th Floor; New York, NY 10022.

Finally, commentator John Hockenberry proposes that creativity is a species-wide experience.

To learn more about the mental illnesses we have discussed today, please contact the National Mental Health Association at 1-800 969-NMHA (6642) or on the web at www.nmha.org. Or call the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or reach them on the web at www.NAMI.org.

Free screening for depression is available by calling the NMHA Depression Screening Site Locater Line at 1-800-573-4433, or on the web at www.depression-screening.org.

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