Creativity and psychopathology

What is the relation between creativity and psychopathology? Does psychopat hology facilitate creativity? Does creative activity induce psychopathology ? We expose here an historical bibliographic review, in search of responses to these questions posed from ancient Greece to these days. For Plato, talent was the enthusiasm which drags one away from oneself. For Aristotle, creativity was a rational process originated in nature, but he noticed that the greatest artists and scientists were melancholic. In the M iddle Ages the idea of an association between creativity and mental patholo gy arose. In 1867, Maudsley postulated that genius was the maximum expressi on of human potentiality and of mental abnormality. In 1869, Galton began h is scientific study on creativity. Since then several researchers have stud ied it by means of: a) biographical studies (Juda, Fernandes da Fonseca, Lu dwig, Jamison, Schildkraut, Post, Espinel, who found a there was stronger r elation between creativity and affective disorders, specially bipolar spect rum, in artists); b) research on the psychopathology of creative living sub jects (Andreasen, Ludwig, Mraz and Runco), and c) research on the creativit y of psychiatric patients (Jamison, Steinberg, Richards, Crowell, Stoll, Be rrettini, Miller, Dowker). We also reviewed the concepts of Perez-Rincon, W hybrow, Silverman, Poldinger and Rothenberg. Dabrowski, in his positive des integration theory, suggested that psychoneurosis is critical to developmen t. In a person with a strong potential, symptoms may be a sign of his high developmental potencial, wich can be used for becoming an authentic, autono mous human being. Kopacz and Janikak explained the association between crea tivity and bipolar disorder: creativity is the product of bipolar desease; creativity and bipolar disease are different but they have related genes, a nd creative temperament is phenomenologically similar to hipomania. However , we agree with Feder's concept: creativity is a natural process implying a mbivalence as well as procreativity.