A potential genetic basis for the disorder could cause ethical problems, warns Professor Grant Gillett of the University of Otago, New Zealand. He writes, “The diagnosis of bipolar disorder has been linked to giftedness of various sorts and this raises a special problem in that it is likely that the condition has a genetic basis. Therefore it seems possible that in the near future we will be able to detect and eliminate the gene predisposing to the disorder.

“This may mean, however, that, as a society, we lose the associated gifts. We might then face a difficult decision either way in that it is unclear that we are preventing an unalloyed bad when we diagnose and eliminate bipolar disorder through prenatal genetic testing and yet if we allow the individual to be born we are condemning that person to being an unwitting sacrifice in that they might well suffer considerable net distress as a result of our need to keep our gene pool enriched in the relevant way.”

In any case, individuals with bipolar disorder often report that they are at their most creative and productive when feeling most healthy. For example, the poet Sylvia Plath, who is widely believed to have had bipolar disorder, said that when she was writing she was accessing the healthiest part of herself. What might she have written had she not killed herself at age 30?

A 2005 study attempted to unravel the relationship between Virginia Woolf’s creativity and her mental illness, which was most likely bipolar disorder. The psychiatrist Gustavo Figueroa of the University of Valparaiso, Chile, writes, “She was moderately stable as well as exceptionally productive from 1915 until she committed suicide in 1941.

“Virginia Woolf created little or nothing while she was unwell, and was productive between attacks.” But, “A detailed analysis of her own creativity over the years shows that her illnesses were the source of material for her novels.”

It does seem that for those who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, creativity can offer a powerful means of expression.

References

Tremblay, C. H., Grosskopf, S. and Yang, K. Brainstorm: Occupational choice, bipolar illness and creativity. Economics and Human Biology, published online January 13, 2010.

Liu, A. et al. A Case Study of an Emerging Visual Artist with Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Neurocase, Vol. 15, June 2009, pp. 235-47.

Gillett, G. The unwitting sacrifice problem. The Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 31, June 2005, pp. 327-32.

Figueroa, C. G. Virginia Woolf as an example of a mental disorder and artistic creativity. Revista Medica de Chile, Vol. 133, November 2005, pp. 1381-88.

The Link Between Bipolar Disorder and Creativity