The Link Between Genius And Madness From Edgar Allen Poe, to
Vincent Van Gogh, to Virginia Woolf, many of our society's
geniuses have been plagued by a mental illness such as bipolar
disorder or even schizophrenia. New research shows that this
link between 'genius and madness' may be more than just a
coincidence. A panel composed of three researchers with mental
illnesses themselves attempted to prove that the tortured genius
is more fact than fiction. Creativity seems to have the
strongest relationship with mood disorders such bipolar
disorder. Like Us on Facebook Kay Redfield Jamison, one of the
panelists and a clinical pyschologist and professor at John
Hopkins University cited a study on 700,000 Swedish children.
The study tested them when they were 16 and checked to see if
those that did the best developed mental illnesses later in
life. According to Jamison, "They found that people who excelled
when they were 16 years old were four times as likely to go on
to develop bipolar disorder." The reason for bi