Jumat, 06 Juli 2018
THE CORELATION BETWEEN CREATIVITY AND MENTAL
ILLNESSES
by :
ILHAM MAULANA
FIRDAUS
NIM : 1630911024
English Literature
Erik Candra Pertala
M. Hum
July 04, 2018
OUTLINE
Thesis
: There is a corelation between creativity and mental illness which causes most
of creative people are tend to have mental ilnesses
I.
Introduction
A.
Creativity
1.
What
is creativity
2.
What
are kinds of creativity
3.
Who
are the creative people
B.
Mental
Illnesses
1.
What
is mental illnesses
2.
What
are the main types of mental ilnesses
II.
The
connection between creativity and mental illnesses
1.
What
is the correlation between creative people and mental illnesss
2.
The
studies about the correlation between creativity people and mental illnesss
III.
Problem
and solutions about creative people’s mental illnesses
1.
Concerned
with their creativity
A. Problem : Creative people who
have mental ilness will lose the mood to create works again
B. Solutions
1.) Personally : Creative people
should to make their mind fresh again, so they can restore their mood
2.) Society : the people around
them should support them by encouraging them work to make creative people back
in mood again
2.
Concerned
with their mental health
A.
Problem
: Creative people are very tortured with their mental illnesses which it can
lead them to commit suicide
B.
Solutions
1.)
Personally
: Creative people should not give up on their mental illnesses
2.)
Society
: Their closest people should help and guide them to overcome their mental illnesses
IV.
Conclusion
V.
Work
Cited
From the past until now, there
are so many works that had been created by creative people. Many of the works
they have made was contributed to the development of times. Of course, not
everyone in this world can create works like these people made, that because
creative people have something special which make them different than ordinary
people. Creative people are have a high level of creativity which make them
more innovative in creating new things that different from the existing ones. Although
most of people are thinks those creative people are looks so enjoying in
creating their works, but they dont know that many of them are having serious
mental health problems. Those creative people are more tend to have several
mental health problems, this is because there is a corelation between
creativity and mental illness.
Firstly we will talk about creativity,
what is creativity?. Creativity is often described in several terms, such as
“creative thinking”, or ability”, “problem solving”, “imagination,” or
“innovation”. Many definition involve an aspect of problem solving, where the
solution to the problem requires insight (e.g, Simonton, 1999; Sternberg and
Davidson, 1995). Creativity has been identified as an important component in
problem solving and other cognitive abilities, as well as being a predictor for
educational success, and mental and social well-being (Plucker, Beghetto &
Dow, 2004).
Creativity is the ability to
produce work that is novel (i.e original, unexpected)” (Sternberg and Lubart,
1999). According from the Cambridge University Dictionary, creativity means the
ability to produce original and unusual ideas, or to make something new. So, creativity
is an ability that people have to able them to create something new by using
their creative ideas or innovation and it also make them able to solve problems
much easily.
According from Donald N.
MacKinnon, a researchers from the Institute of Personality Assessement and Research
Laboratory (IPAR), creativity is divided into three of kinds. The first is
artistic creativity, which is reflects the creator’s inner needsm of perception
and motivation. The second type is scientific and technological creativity,
which deals with some problem of the environtment and result in novel solutions
but exhibits little of the inventor’s personality. The third type is hybrid
creativity that found in such fields such as architecture that exhibits both a novel
problem, solution and the personality of the creator (MacKinnon, 2005).
Then, what are the creative
people?. Creative people are those people which are different than ordinary/less
creative people, they are often very intelligent, but are also a little more naive
than ordinar people. They tend to have a varying array of traits that relate to
playfulness and discipline, responsibility and irresponsibility. They are
rooted in reality yet also can alternate between imagination and fantasy. They
are both passionate and critical about their work and are sensitive to a point
that yields both extreme joy and extreme pain. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996)
There are also the 10
antithetical traits that often present in creative people that are integrated
with each other in a dialectical tension that mentioned by Csikszentmihalyi :
1.
Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also often
quiet and at rest.
2.
Creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time.
3.
Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and
irresponsibility.
4. Creative
people alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of
reality.
5.
Creative people tend to be both extroverted and introverted.
6.
Creative people are humble and proud at the same time.
7.
Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping.
8.
Creative people are both rebellious and conservative.
9. Most creative people are very
passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.
10. Creative people's openness
and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment.
Now, lets
talk about mental illness. According from an Australian Government Department
of Health and Ageing’s brochure “What is mental illness?”, mental illness is a
health problem that significally affects how a person feels, thinks, behaves,
and interacts with other people. Mental health problems are more common and
include the mental ill health that can be experienced temporary as a reaction
to the stressess of life. This health problem are less severe than mental
illnesses, but may develop into a mental ilness if they are not effectively
dealt with. Mental illnessess cause a great deal of suffering to those who
experiencing them, as well as their families and friends.
Mental illness
has three main kinds of form, the first one is depression, depression is a mood
of emotional state that is marked by feeling or self-worth or guilt and a
reduced ability to enjoy life, and a feeling of low mood that lasts for a long
time that affects people’s everyday life. There also some specific symptom that
related to it, those symptomps are feeling of sadness, worthlessness, fatigue,
guilt and difficulity concentrating or making decisions (Smeltzer, 2010). In
it’s mildest form, depression doesn’t stop people to leading a normal life, but
it makes everything harder to do and seem less worthwhile. At its most severe,
depression can make people feel suicidal, and be life-threathening (Mind, 2016).
The second
type of main mental illnesses is Anxiety, Anxiety is a general term for several
disorders that cause nervousness, fear, apphrehension, and worrying. The
American Psychological Association (APA) defines anxiety as “an emotion
characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes
like blood pressure”. This disored can be divided into six main types, those
are ; Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), Panic disorder, Phobia,
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and
the last is Social Anxiety disorder (SAD). Anxiety is one of the important
normally and regularly occurring emotions, which can be observed throughout all
human cultures and also in several animal species. (Damasio and Carvalho, 2013).
Furthermore, the third type of
the main mental illness is schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a serious long-term
mental disorder which affects how a person, feels and acts. People with
schizophrenia may have difficulity in distinguishing between what is real and
what is imaginary. People can suffer this mental problem at various stages of
age, but the symptoms of this disease is usually appears within the age range
from 20 to 30 years. The hallmark symptom of this disease is psychosis, such as
experiencing auditory hallucination (voices) and delusions (McGrath, 2008).
The main adverse
effects from Schizophrenia to people are;
-
Social
withdrawal, such as being closed to people, cold, selfish, secluding from
others, etc.
-
Lack
of motivation, loss of interest in things around even their persomal hygiene and
self-care.
So, is it any corelation between creative
people and the mental illnesses?. As described by Goodwin and Jamison (1990),
many of creative people are having some mental ilnesses, most have biopolar
disorder, but some have depression, personality disorder, substance use disorder,
or even schizophrenia. Also, several scientific studies have demostrated there
is a connection between creativity and mental illness, including bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia. Even though these creative people can solve their
problems much easily than ordinary people do, but they are still have a
struggle to overcome their mental ilness. Many of creative people are exposed
to mental health problems, this can be proved because some of famous creative genius
such as Michelangelo, Beethoven, Van Gogh, etc. was tortured by various mental
health problems, and its not wrong that Aristotle once said “No great genius
has ever existed without a strain of madness”.
A possible link between mental
illness and creative output has been documented throughout history. Even though
the association between bipolar disorder and creativity first appeared in the
literature back in 1970’s, but the idea of a link between “madness” (mental
illness), and “genius: (creativity) is actually much older, as it goes back to
the time of Aristotle and the Ancient Greeks when the idea between the
corelation between creativity and mental illness comes to appear for the first
time.
There are some studies about the
correlation between creativity and mental that was arranged by some experts.
Some studies have shown that those people who are highly creative also run a
higher risk of depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder According from
one study that was published by About Suicide from American Foundation for
Suicide Prevention in 2000, creative people are much more prone to depression
that resulting them to doing suicide. Biographical studies of great writers and
artist consistently show the high average of depression (manic depression ) and
suicide rates. A study that conducted by A. Ludwig in 1992 to the generations
of early writers and artist claimed that their chance of depression were eight
times greater than ordinary people, and even their average suicide rate was 18
times greater.
In 2013, Journal of Psychiatric
Research was found that people who made their living through either scientific
or creative occupation, were more have bipolar, or a relative with the
condition. The researchers concluded that, “being an author was specifically
associated with increased likelihood of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,
unipolar depression, anxiety disorders, substence abuse, and suicide”. Another study
that was arranged in Sweden which used about 700,000 teenagers as the subject
found that those who were exceptionally creative, were also four times more
likely to have bipolar. This condition is represented by the subject’s mood
that alternating between the phases of extreme happiness, and the crippling
depression.
There are several problems that
comes from their mental illnesses. The first one, a creative people are usually
losing mood in creating new things because he feels so stressed and pressured.
The stress and pressure he has felt makes him no longer to have the spirit and
motivation in the work, he becomes very difficult in finding inspiration and
ideas, and it also makes him become very reluctant to do the usual activities
in his normal life. To solve this problem, that creative people should takes a
break in all of his activities for a while, so he can recreating in order to
reduce the stress that he felt and also to restore his mood again. He can do
the recreation either by doing a holiday to some places or any other kinds of
activities that keeps him stay away from the stress and pressure. Besides the
effort from that creative people, this problem also can be solved with the help
that comes from the people around him such as his family or friends. They can
help him by doing a routine talk with him, this is a best way to get everything
out of his mind. In the conversation, they also need to add some encouraging
words to help him getting back his mood again and he became more enthusiastic
in doing all of his activities.
Next is the second problem and
also the worst problem, a creative people sometimes felt so tortured with his mental
illnesses, he had already given up with all those mental ilnesses and makes him
become feels so down which it can lead him to doing suicide. This is the worst
phase of his suffering, because he becomes very desperate and no longer have
passion on living his life anymore. Suicide is not the way that he can do to be
free from his mental health problems, it is a very wrong decision because it
can cause negative effects not only for him, also to the people around him. In
this case, on the heart of a creative people must have the believe that he will
be able to recover from his mental illness. He should instill the thoughts on
his heart that suicide is not the right way he must do to take him free from
all of his mental illnesses, but it will cause bad impacts which one of it is will
make his family become very saddened because of his death.
Then he also needs help from the
people around him, just like the first problem solving, they should do a
routine talk with him about his problem, in order to make him clear out all his
negative thoughts which is the factor that he wanted to end his life. By doing
a routine talk, they will slowly makes him overcome his mental ilnesses with
the words that contains many suggestion and encouragement for him. And also,
those close people can do an alternative way to overcome his mental health
problem by suggesting them to go to a psychiatrist for therapy, they must
accompany him at first to make him more comfortable in doing the theraphy.
After doing the theraphy, the psychiatrist will definetly give some kinds of
medicines for his mental illness. Then, they need to cooperate with the
psyciatrist in overseeing the usage of his medicine also with the progress of
his mental condition.
In conclusion, creativity is an
ability to thinking, imaginating and problem solving, creative people are those
people with that ability which using their creativity to creating a new
innovation that comes from their ideas. Then, mental illnesses is several
mental health problem that changes someone in many aspects. There are 3 main
kinds of mental ilnesss : depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. It has been
noticed that there is a connection between creativity and mental illness, a
creative people are tend to have mental illnesses than ordinary people which
this fact was proved by some studies from exprets. Creative people have several
mental health such as stress and depression because he felt so pressured,
usually that pressure comes from his activities, also. The impact of his mental
illness is diverse, such as losing mood to creating work and makes him so
hopeless which it could led him to commiting
suicide. To solve those problems, both the creative person also the people
around him shouuld be able to do in some various way, but the point is that
creative people are must strive to survive from his mental ilness and also
accompanied by the help that comes from the support from his closest people.
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