Creativity and mental illness. Why do they go together so often? Or do they?

A Q&A with Dr. Richard Kogan, a psychiatrist, concert pianist and artistic director of the Weill Cornell Music/Medicine Initiative in New York City.

There is a public perception, and there is actually some epidemiologic research showing that the incidence of mental illness is higher in creative people. So says Dr. Richard Kogan, a psychiatrist, concert pianist and artistic director of the Weill Cornell Music/Medicine Initiative in New York City. He calls Romantic composer Robert Schumann the best example of the blurred boundary between genius and insanity.

On Friday, Feb. 5, Dr. Kogan will give a lecture-demonstration at NEOMED, playing and talking about music by Schumann, who suffered his whole life from mental illness. Dr. Kogan recently spoke by phone with NEOMED. Excerpts of the conversation follow.

What do psychiatrists today believe the composer Robert Schumann suffered from? Was it depression? Was he biopolar?

It’s difficult doing a retrospective diagnosis. I have enough trouble diagnosing patients who are alive! But Schumann makes our job a little easier, because he kept very extensive journals and diaries. We know about his mental state for nearly every day of his adult life.

He did show a pattern of mood swings. During the last years of his life he lived in an insane asylum.He was probably bipolar, or hypomanic. It is a disorder that is overrepresented in creative people. When he was depressed, he didn’t compose much. He often had this delusional conviction that he had no abilities as a composer. But he had manic periods when he composed prolifically: There was a period of several weeks when he composed three string quartets.

There are advantages to hypomania: heightened imagination, a decreased need for sleep.  All of these things are associated with high productivity, and when he was in this state, Schumann was able to access some novel solutions to creative problems.

Schumann often said he only composed to give a glimpse into the inner state of the composer. Other composers at that time were interested in the sonata form. Schumann wasn’t that interested in form; he was writing pieces with Romantic titles like “Rapture’’ and ‘’Feverish Dreams.” The intensity of Schumann’s emotional life is important in his music.

My presentation at NEOMED is truncated from the presentations I do for meetings of the American Psychiatric Association, but I’m going to try to play at least parts of a work by Schumann called Carnaval. Schumann created a whole cast of characters for the piece, and two of the movements are named for characters called Eusebius and Florestan. Eusebius is this poetic, melancholic dreamer who represented Schumann’s depressive self. Florestan is a hyperkinetic character who represented Schumann’s manic self. You can hear that in the music: you get a feeling that Schumann’s thoughts are racing.

How does an understanding of the link between mental illness and creativity help psychiatrists in treating patients?

One of the reason I like doing programs like this one and my performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Akron Symphony on February 6 is that they underscore issues that are relevant to everybody. Creative people are talented and remembered in history, but their lives are actually more like ours than they are different. Everyone has professional reversals, everyone has romantic reversals, and everybody has some degree of mood swings. It’s largely a matter of degree. Many creative people, like Schumann, struggle with illness that is not unlike that of people I see in my office.

How would life be better for Schumann if he lived today?

In Schumann’s time, the Romantic era, I think you had to be a little bit off to be taken seriously as an artist. It was fashionable. The state of the art of psychiatry was very primitive.

Schumann begged for treatment. He had several physicians who were friends. I think he used alcohol as self-medication and he tried all kinds of things: he was hypnotized, he got hydrotherapy, he tried phlebotomy. He jumped in the Rhine River in a suicide attempt.

It’s an interesting question: does mood-stabilizing medicine inhibit creativity? If you put artists like Schumann on a treatment regimen that interfered with their creativity, I think they would ask for help just to get them past the obstacles.

How can engaging in creative pursuits help people with mental illness?

It’s important not to over-romanticize mental illness. Most people who are depressed are too paralyzed to paint a great masterpiece. There is definitely a role for treatment, but it needs to be handles with finesse.

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Upcoming Events:

Dr. Richard Kogan
Lecture-demonstration for NEOMED students, faculty and staff
Noon-12:50 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5
Great Hall of the Ralph Regula Center, NEOMED
Pizza lunch provided; reservation required.

Akron Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Wilkins, music director
Richard Kogan, pianist and speaker
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2
8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6
E.J. Thomas Hall, Akron
Open to the public. Tickets: 330-535-8131

Mention NEOMED when ordering for a 30% ticket discount.