Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic TemperamentAn “artistically written” book from an acclaimed psychologist with “a profound understanding of the relationship that exists between art and madness” (William Styron, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Sophie’s Choice). The definitive work on the surprising links between manic-depression and creativity, from one of the foremost authorities on bipolar disorder and the bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind. The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Kay Redfield Jamison’s book, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness. Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world’s greatest artists including Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, and Virginia Woolf. “In language comprehensible to the lay reader, [Jamison]presents a thorough overview of current knowledge concerning the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of this disorder.” —Library Journal |
Contents
| 11 | |
COULD IT BE MADNESSTHIS? | 49 |
THEIR LIFE A STORM WHEREON THEY RIDE | 101 |
THE MINDS CANKER IN ITS SAVAGE MOOD | 149 |
7 | 193 |
THIS NET THROWNE UPON THE HEAVENS | 239 |
APPENDIXES | 261 |
NOTES | 271 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 355 |
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affective disorders affective illness alcohol American Journal Andreasen artists and writers associated asylum behavior biographer bipolar British Cambridge clinical cognitive committed suicide creative cyclothymia cyclothymic depressive illness described diagnostic criteria disease drug emotional episodes Faber family history genes genetic genius Gogh Goodwin and Jamison hypomania hypomanic Ibid individuals insane James Clarence Mangan John Keats Journal of Psychiatry letter from Byron lithium London Lord Byron madness major depressive mania and depression manic manic-depressive illness Marchand melancholia melancholy mental illness mind mood disorders mood swings Moore nature nervous normal Oxford University Press patients patterns percent periods personality Poems poet poetry porphyria Psychiatry psychological psychopathology psychosis psychotic Recurrent Depressive relatives Robert Lowell Robert Schumann Samuel Taylor Coleridge schizophrenia seasonal Shelley sleep studies suffered symptoms temperament Tennyson therapy thinking Thomas Thomas Chatterton thought treatment violent Virginia Woolf William Blake writers and artists wrote York
Popular passages
Page 20 - I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises ; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.