Creativity and mental disorder

family study of 300 000 people with severe mental disorder

Kyaga, Simon MD
Lichtenstein, Paul PhD
Boman, Marcus BSc
Hultman, Christina PhD
Långström, Niklas MD, PhD
Landén, Mikael MD, PhD

Simon Kyaga, MD, Paul Lichtenstein, PhD, Marcus Boman, BSc, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm; Christina Hultman, PhD, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and Department of Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Ulleråker, Uppsala; Niklas Långström, MD, PhD, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and Center for Violence Prevention, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm; Mikael Landén, MD, PhD, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, and Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Correspondence: Simon Kyaga, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, POB 281, SE 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. Email: [email protected]

Declaration of interest: None.

First received 7 Aug 2010, final revision 24 Nov 2010, accepted 23 Feb 2011

British Journal of Psychiatry 199(5):p 373-379, November 2011.

Background

There is a long-standing belief that creativity is coupled with psychopathology.

Aims

To test this alleged association and to investigate whether any such association is the result of environmental or genetic factors.

Method

We performed a nested case-control study based on Swedish registries. The likelihood of holding a creative occupation in individuals who had received in-patient treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or unipolar depression between 1973 and 2003 and their relatives without such a diagnosis was compared with that of controls.

Results

Individuals with bipolar disorder and healthy siblings of people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were overrepresented in creative professions. People with schizophrenia had no increased rate of overall creative professions compared with controls, but an increased rate in the subgroup of artistic occupations. Neither individuals with unipolar depression nor their siblings differed from controls regarding creative professions.

Conclusions

A familial cosegregation of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with creativity is suggested.