The Sylvia Plath effect: Mental illness in eminent creative writes

Although many studies (e.g., Andreasen, 1987; Jamison, 1989; Ludwig, 1995) have demonstrated that creative writers are prone to suffer from mental ill ness, this relationship has not been truly examined in depth. Is this findi ng true of all writers? In Study One, 1,629 writers were analyzed for signs of mental illness. Female poets were found to be significantly more likely to suffer from mental illness than female fiction writers or male writers of any type. Study Two extended the analysis to 520 eminent women (poets, f iction writers, non-fiction writers, visual artists, politicians, and actre sses), and again found the poets to be significantly more likely to experie nce mental illness. This early finding has been dubbed "the Sylvia Plath ef fect," and implications and possibilities for future research are discussed .