The Sylvia Plath Effect

[Delta40]

From Wikipedia:

The Sylvia Plath effect is a term coined by psychologist James C. Kaufman in 2001 to refer to the phenomenon that creative writers are more susceptible to mental illness than other people. Kaufman's work demonstrated that female poets were more likely to suffer from mental illness than any other class of writers. This finding has been discussed in many international newspapers, including the New York Times. The finding is consistent with other psychological research studies.

I have been reading about creativity in relation to disorders such as bipolar, depression and epilepsy and came across this link. What are other people's thoughts?

Other sites confirm that female poets are the group most likely to have a mental illness but they don't give any reason why this is so. Any theories?

Part of me rejects this hypothesis as a step to discredit female art but another part of me, steeped in creative angst, is genuinely concerned.

[MystyrMystyry]

Oh Delta - everyone's at least a little bit nuts, no escaping it

Celebrate your nutsiness in words, painting, sculpture, music, song, and dance - us sort of nuts are mostly harmless (Adolph and Uncle Joe being a couple of notable exceptions, and I'm certain there are a few others)

How about cops are nuts? Politicians are nuts? Bus drivers are nuts? Postal workers going postal?

Be thankful you've got the gift of expression for your own satisfaction, and you're not limited to your day job - do you know how many people drink and carry on because they don't know what else to do with themselves? And that is a temporary self-inflicted braining: 'Ah I've got too many disconnected thoughts! Must have too many braincells! I know I'll go get smashed - that'll teach me pesky braincells!'

Everyone gets a little (or a lot) depressed on occasion, trick is to keep yourself occupied and find something to engage with, have short and long term plans - keep trying different things and never let yourself get bored

And you'll still get bored somewhere along the line if you're a bore to begin with


Sylvia was a depressive nut to begin with, who happened to write poems - Virginia Woolf happened to write novels, and you name it the best artists are all a little like that (social cripples into the bargain)

Two words for you to look up: Ken Done (how I wish he was a depressive rather than a depressant)

[Panglossian]

I can fully understand how the process of writing can take someone to the brink of *madness*. It has happened to me. Between 2005-2009 I was a virtual zombie, lost in my own quest for perfection.

If you are attempting to create something that is not satisfying your creative expectations and yet you cannot *let go* until you get there, until you get it right, until you achieve your vision, then severe mental disturbance is inevitable.

[JBI]

I don't know how they run the studies - do they take poets and see if they are nuts? or ask nuts people if they are poets? As it is, I think audiences, especially in the past few decades, were looking for mentally unstable female poets - they were giving them the best reviews - hysteria is an obsession, patriarchal by design, but females took it as a banner to an extent - for me that's probably where this comes from. There is no direct link between mental illness, drugs, liquor, and creativity. It's all mythologizing an idea - Sylvia Plath anyway wasn't some Goddess, I doubt she would have been read if she didn't kill herself.

Woody Allen made the connection between her and her mythologized self as early as Annie Hall.

[AuntShecky]

As a general rule, poets (of both genders) are introspective, and thus might be more vulnerable to depression. (I don't know about the other forms of mental illness, but from what I've read, many of those diseases are hereditary.) Perhaps there is a genetic disposition toward depression as well.

I've also read that depression is non-specific as to gender, and that the reason the illness is linked to women more than to men is that women are more likely to speak up about what's bothering them, whereas men, afraid of social stigma, seemingly "unmanly" and the like, keep it under wraps.


I don't really believe, as the author you cite apparently does, that mental illness is an "occupation hazard" for poets.


I guess you found the article interesting, Delta. But please don't go reading anything personal into it. From reading what you post on the LitNet, I would guess that you're one of the most mentally healthy, reasonable, life-loving people around.

Yet despite all of that, you're also a brilliant poet.

You've got a God-given sense of humor. So if you're in any way "crazy" it's only in that delightfully "zany" way.

[tonywalt]

Gifted and talented people are often divergent thinkers who have unusual, original, and creative perception and elaborate fantasies. They may disagree with authority, invest in their own interests, and express unpopular views.

This can present social challenges, as a result of a cultural expectation to conform. Gifted and talented people quite often receive little acceptance for their unique selves, and some may have poor self-esteem and difficulty trusting people. This situation can lead to feelings of isolation which quite often leads to depression.

[JuniperWoolf]

I don't know how they run the studies - do they take poets and see if they are nuts? or ask nuts people if they are poets?

They'd do it statistically. Step one, create a list of famous suicides and/or psychiatric institution admissions, find out the most predominant vocation. If you happen to find that frequently poets that are having problems, take that catagory apart mathematically. How many of those poets are female? How many famous poets in general are female? Then take that and see how many published female poets have had psychiatric problems taking into consideration a ratio of how many published female poets actually have existed, and how that number compares a similar ratio of published male poets who have had psychiatric problems. You could do the same thing with anything, any profession or culture or gender or sexual orientation, whatever.