Various historical analyzes have associated mental disorders and creative faculties in a relationship of quasi-causality. How we would have to go through a period of mental turmoil to be able to create. Better, we would have to live in deep mental disorders to access the creativity of a genius. In an inverse causality, one could consider that being a genius can favor a great mental drift.
The excellent book “Un coup de axe dans la tête” by Raphaël Gaillard (psychiatrist, head of the Saint Anne hospital in Paris) shows us that this is not the case with these direct causalities and that these belief systems have still hard life. The methodological (even ontological) dualism “disturbance – creativity” is part of the “logic” of a dualism such as that of “matter-spirit” or even of “nature-culture”.
Mental disorders refer to different brain diseases: depression, melancholic depression, schizophrenia, autism, psychosis. Genetic analyzes of large numbers of observations (Scandinavian population, Icelandic population) reveal that there is a correlation (not causation) between the appearance of one of these diseases and a mutation score of one set of a hundred genes.
For the disease to manifest itself, the score must reach a certain, significant threshold. This hundred genes is a vector of potential vulnerability for these different diseases. This same gene family, for a much lower score, has a potential for creative faculty. It is probable that this double potentiality is consecutive to the emergence of homo sapiens: creativity makes him more adaptable, more sociable (languages) but also more vulnerable (mental disorders). Taking into account the level of the score is very important. When it rises too high, the creative faculties collapse.
For a mental illness to arise, four major families of factors will interact to transform a potentiality into a very real catastrophe (modeling of the mathematics of bifurcations in complex environments). The first factors are biological. The genetic factor creating a potentiality: the score of this hundred genetic mutations.
At another biological level, the balances-imbalances of hormonal flows can destabilize cerebral functioning and access to the consciousness of our “representations of the world” in our “global space of conscious work” (S Dehaene’s model). There may be a dysfunction, a confusion between the mental representations of the external world and the internal. Epigenetic aspects will characterize another family of s-factors: they will favor or not the reading of these genes with notions of parental inheritance. Another family of factors concerns the cultural, relational, educational, affective and cognitive fields. Finally, the last family is linked to the more material living environment (pollution, social and natural trauma).
For a creative faculty to emerge, the biological and genetic potentialities will be revealed at lower scores. Epigenetic, cultural and environmental factors will also play their part. And as in classical music or jazz, creativity will emerge. Quite often the creativity of adaptation will result from a painful life stage: bodily or mental illness, social disorder, survival situation, etc. The most frequent example is that of a professional rebound in the field of personal assistance (psychotherapist, coach, yoga teacher, etc.). The desire to pass on what enabled the person to get out of it is an essential motivator.
Creativity covers a vast field both in terms of areas and in intensity. The genius of an Einstein may have nothing to do with the artistic genius of a Picasso. It seems to me interesting to distinguish different forms of creativity, in particular between collective creativity and individual creativity. Collective creativity is very often conducted within the framework of a formalized creative process. This is very common in the industrial world. In the artistic world, whether in the creation of a film or a play, creativity is also very often collective but much more dependent and singular, linked to the faculties and intentions of the author of the creation. Multiple skills and individual faculties are necessary to develop and ultimately produce an achievement (“innovation” in industry, “creation” in live performance).
Individual creativity is often linked to a paradoxical environment (mix of security criteria, insecurity criteria). In the conditions of survival one will find a similar mixture, of self-confidence and feeling of perdition, of impossible objectives (eg the film “the suspended death”). We can distinguish incremental creativity (scientific research), disruptive creativity (the invention of Lego), assembly creativity (the components exist, their assembly produces a work of art or a system of organized ideas (research scientific, philosophical work, novel, film etc.) To go from the “new idea”, or from a “organized system of ideas” to their realization, and when creation or innovation requires teamwork , communication, the sale of the project becomes a crucial step.
Organic diseases, functional diseases, mental illnesses, individual creativity of survival or adaptation result from risk factors (threats / opportunities) in complex multi-factorial environments. The catastrophe-metamorphoses to which Western societies are exposed today generate as many mental disorders as social traumas as brilliant creativity of adaptation. Genetic, biological, epigenetic, cultural and environmental factors join hands in an endless round of individual and collective creativity and turmoil. And the evolution of the world goes from the improbable to the most improbable and the most complex.
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