Is there a relationship between poetry and psychosis?
The idea that 'genius' is just one step removed from 'madness' is a venerable one, and psychiatrists and psychologists have spent a great (perhaps an inordinate) amount of time looking for correlations between mental illness and creativity. Now a new British study has examined whether poets exhibit more traits of psychosis than other people. One of the authors is a published poet, Helen Mort. The researchers recruited 294 poets in an anonymous online survey; 92% of them had published their work. On the O-LIFE questionnaire, a self-report measure of psychotic symptoms, the poets scored above average on the "Unusual Experiences", "Cognitive Disorganization" and "Impulsive Nonconformity" traits. Furthermore, poets who described their work as ‘avant-garde' scored even higher on "Unusual Experiences" and on a questionnaire of mood disorder symptoms. Rates of self-reported mental illnesses were also high
two poets (0.7%) reported schizophrenia, 15 ...
