Anna Yusim - Creativity and Madness

No great mind has existed without a touch of madness.
--Aristotle
In ancient Greece, Plato noted the eccentricities of poets and playwrights, while Aristotle saw that some creative types were more likely to be depressed. In modern times, that connection has persisted, from Robert Schumann hearing voices to guide his music, to Sylvia Plath sticking her head in an oven, to Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear. As is well-established in the public conscience, some of the most brilliant and creative people in these fields have been plagued by mental illness, some even succumbing the suicide. The list includes prominent comedian Robin Williams, artistic creators like Mozart, Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton, Ernest Hemingway. Edgar Allan Poe, Michelangelo, Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock, among many others. When Nobel prize winning mathematician John Nash, who suffered from schizophrenia, was asked “Why did you believe that you were appointed by aliens to save the world??” he answered “Because the ideas about supernatural things came to me the same way as did the mathematical solutions! So I took them seriously!!” In this talk, I’ll discuss the connection between madness and creativity, providing historical examples and scientific findings to explain why an original mind is often also a trouble one.
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