BIPOLARCREATIVITY

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Bipolar Creativity Learning from Mental Illness Reflections on THE ABSTRACT MIND MURAL Created by Aldo Castillo (curator) and the Neumann Association Chicago Festival of Disability Arts and Culture (2006) Hector Sabelli, M.D., Ph. D. Chicago Center for Creative Development (CCCD)

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The birth of Venus, the Spirit of Love, from the waves of the ocean offers an interesting metaphor for evolution: the creation of complexity by waves. Waves, such as light waves and swings of mood, are swings between opposites.

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Magdalena Fernandez Common places Abstract Mind Mural. 2006

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ACTION + BIPOLARITY, + CONNECTION = DEVELOPMENT (simple origin, new, unique, and complex outcome) CREATION: natural and human

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Ingrid Garcia-Moya Freshness. Abstract Mind Mural. 2006

Creation is a tree: 

Creation is a tree

Creation is a tree: 

Creation is a tree Tree of mathematical bifurcations Ingrid Garcia-Moya Freshness. Abstract Mind Mural. 2006

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Creation is continually accompanied by destruction: illness, ageing, environmental pollution, global warming, crime, war, terrorism, preventive war Fostering creativity is an essential component in the treatment of every loss and every illness. Objective: to be creative by intent and design, not by chance

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How can we promote creation rather than destruction? What are the psychological traits that enhance creativity? Some answers to this question may be found in considering the well documented relation between bipolar illness and artistic creativity.

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Incidence of Mental Illness Artists 27% Poets 50% Architects 17% Scientists 19% General population 10-12% Adele Juda (1949) Germany

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The artistic creativity of bipolar persons Bipolar traits: 66% of award-winning writers, poets, painters and sculptors Mood disorder 40 % artists Mood disorder 80% of creative writers Akiskal H, Akiskal K. Psychiatry and Psychobiology 1988 Andreasen NC, Glick ID: Comprehensive Psychiatry, 1988 Jamison KR: Touched with fire. 1993 Ludwig AM. Creative achievement and psychopathology: comparison among professions. Am J Psychotherapy 1992; 46:330–356. Schildkraut and coworkers American Journal Psychiatry, 1994

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Depressed and Bipolar Musicians Beethoven, Berlioz, Donizetti, Handel, Mahler, Ochs, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Tchaikovsky Irving Berlin, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Cole Porter Alohe Jean Burke, Rosemary Clooney, DMX Earl Simmons, Ray Davies, Lenny Dee, Peter Gabriel, Jimi Hendrix, Kristen Hersh, Phyllis Hyman Jack Irons, Daniel Johnston, Otto Klemperer, Oscar Levant, Phil, John Ogden, Jaco Pastorius Charley Pride, Mac Rebennack, Jeannie C. Riley, Alys Robi, Axl Rose, Nick Traina, Del Shannon, Phil Spector, Sting, Gordon Tom Waits, Brian Wilson, Townes Van Zandtr

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Depressed and Bipolar Artists Severe depression: Baziotes. Gaugin, Guston, Michelangelo, Pollock, Rothko, Georgia O'Keefe Bipolars: van Gogh, Gorky, Klein, Munch, Motherwell, Smit

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Depressed and Bipolar Writers Andersen, Balzac, Berryman, Conrad, Dickens, Dickinson, Eliot, Emerson, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Goethe, Greene, Hemingway, Hugo, Keats, Ibsen, Melville, Sylvia Plath, Poe, Anne Sexton, Mary Shelley, Tolstoy, Williams, Virginia Woolf

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More depressed and bipolar Writers Louis Althusser, Art Buchwald, Neal Cassady, Patricia Cornwell, Margot  Early, Kaye Gibbons, Abbie Hoffman, Kay Redfield Jamison, Peter Nolan Lawrence, Frances Lear, Rika Lesser, Kate Millet, Robert Munsch, Margo Orum, Theodore Roethke, Lori Schiller, Frances Sherwood, Scott Simmie, August Strindberg, Mark Twain, Joseph Vasquez, Mark Vonnegut, Sol Wachtler, Mary Jane Ward

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Being creative: using simple materials to make something new, different, usually more complex. Language: from a limited vocabulary, an infinite number of dialogues, always new, and great creations: Homer, Alighieri, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Moliere Mind: continually new thoughts Behavior: continually new sequences of actions Heartbeats: continually new rhythms

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CREATIVITY IN PSYCHIATRY -is the hallmark of mental health -is the core of psychotherapy -requires three components: 1. ACTION is necessary for health and for therapy 2. BIPOLARITY: ability to see opposite views and to reverse role with others; neurotics, borderlines and anti-social psychopaths see the world in black and white 3. PERSONAL CONNECTIONS AND CULTURAL CONSERVATION

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Bipolar Illness results from changes in Action Action = energy change in time Consider together physical and mental energy (biological and psychological treatment must go together) Consider together changes in energy and in tempo Agency (Active, not passive change)

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Bipolar Illness results from changes in Action Mania and Hypomania: greater energy and faster tempo: increased wakefulness and alertness, emotional reactivity, greater sensitivity, greater physical, sexual, and intellectual energy, freer expression Depression: slower and weaker action: motor retardation, longer sleep, circular obsessions, disorganized (chaotic) mood.

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Manic depressive, an amplification of Bipolarity More love and more conflicts More creation and more destruction Ingrained contrariness and opposition to established beliefs, which frequently antagonizes other people Bifurcating personalities: more friends and more enemies Highs and lows provide the bipolar person with a dual perspective and thus greater creativity

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In Bipolar Illness there are more Connections: interpersonal (intense affection, love, solidarity) and intrapsychic (“loose associations”, unconscious connections, imagination) and more disconnecting and branching (bifurcations): interpersonal (career changes, emigration, break-ups, lost jobs) and intrapsychic (intellectual leaps, shifts in mood, diversity of interests)

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Learning to think creatively from Bipolar Illness: applying action, bipolarity and connection principles to scientific analysis. Example: human cardiac activity 1. Consider sequence in time: how is the sequence of heartbeats? (instead of asking what is the heart rate) 2. Identify Opposites: calculate the sine and the cosine of the value of each heartbeat 3. Make Connections: -study changes in heart rhythm to study emotions -use mathematics to study heart rhythms

Measuring Cardiac Rhythms to study scientifically the dynamics of emotions and illness : 

Measuring Cardiac Rhythms to study scientifically the dynamics of emotions and illness The interval between heart beats is measured for one entire day, as the person works, interacts with others, rests, and sleeps. These intervals show small but essential variation. A thoroughly regular heart announces death. These variations are due to the behavior and emotions experienced by the person. These variations continually CREATE a new, diverse and complex pattern: BIOS

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Sequence of Human heartbeat intervals Electrocardiogram: measure heartbeat intervals (R to R interval = RRI)

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Human heartbeat intervals decomposed into their opposite components Magdalena Fernandez Common places Mandala: the wheel of opposites is a cosmic order in nature and in art

The Biotic pattern of heartbeats is generated by the interaction of opposites : 

The Biotic pattern of heartbeats is generated by the interaction of opposites

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To reproduce the pattern of heartbeats (bios) mathematically with a computer one needs: 1. ACTION 2. BIPOLARITY 3. CONNECTION = CONSERVATION

Bios patterns, similar to the heart, appear in many processes:: 

Bios patterns, similar to the heart, appear in many processes: The expansion of the universe The wave function of electrons Temperature variations of atmosphere and of ocean water The form of rivers and shorelines Changes in respiration rate Economic stocks, prices, production volume Music

Biotic patterns are generated by the interaction of opposites. : 

Biotic patterns are generated by the interaction of opposites. Mathematical models of bios require opposites Heart: brain speeds up and slows down the heart Attraction and repulsion among electrical charges Weather: warm and cold fronts, warm and cold currents Supply and demand create bios, not equilibrium, in economics

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A wave is a fold created by opposite forces. The simplest creation is the interaction of opposites that generates a fold connecting parts that were apart.

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As Bios patterns appears in many processes The expansion of the universe The wave function of electrons Temperature variations of atmosphere and of ocean water The form of rivers and shorelines Changes in respiration rate Economic stocks, prices, production volume Music NATURAL AND HUMAN PROCESSES ARE CREATIVE, NOT DETERMINED OR RANDOM. THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES AND WE CAN CREATE THEM.

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Creation; from simple to complex Cosmos: from Big Bang to galaxies Life: from unicellular organisms to humans History: from stone age to modern society Person: from egg to baby to adult Creation is not a single event, but continues at each moment of time We are part and parcel of creation

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CREATION: A TREE WITH THREE ROOTS ACTION: arrows BIPOLARITY: positive/negative, left/right, woman/man, manic/depressive creating cycles (wheels, engines) CONNECTION (folds, knots, bodies )

DEPRESSION by Veronica Riedel : 

DEPRESSION by Veronica Riedel A gray existence A black mood Thinking in black and white fosters depression and aggression

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Action (like the sequence of numbers) Bipolarity, opposition (like the length and width of a plane) Triads (like length, width and height) Mood Triads: Passion, self and order Love (sex), joy and peace Anger, fear (anxiety) and depression Beyond two opposites

The Creativeness of Three: 

The Creativeness of Three Quantum mechanics: there are three classes of quarks (the particles that make matter) Mathematical theorems show the creativity of three (Poincare, Sarkovskii) Family: mother, father and child Color: three primary colors Three in mental categories, branches of government, Trinitarian concepts of Divinity, etc, etc

Quantum Physics: 

Quantum Physics Action: the quantum has the dimensions of both energy and time Opposition: atoms are formed by the electrical interaction of oppositely charged particles. Triad: atomic nuclei are formed by the union of three quarks of three different “colors”. (Not by chance matter has three dimensions)

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Physical light has no color Simple eyes distinguish light from dark Evolved eyes distinguish 3 colors 4. The lower centers of the brain encode these three colors in 4: two sets of opposites 5…the cerebral cortex constructs many colors from these 4 basic colors, and as one learns painting, one learns to distinguish more and more colors Three roots, continuing creation

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Action Bipolarity, opposition Triads: quarks, colors, moods, concepts Passion, self and order 4. green: affection and growth versus envy (greed) 5…many colors….infinity: creation never ends and strives towards something greater Three roots, continuing creation

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Personal choices, National choices: Love or war? Joy or fear? Affection or greed? Peace or depression?

A creative manner of thinking: 

A creative manner of thinking Action: do not remain still, do not change passively. Initiate action; be the protagonist of your own life. Opposition: Nothing is entirely true, nothing is entirely false. Black and white thinking generates conflict and depression. Triad: Think in color, not just in black and white, or grey. Both opposites share much that is wrong, so seek the third.

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Think in color, not in black and white: regarding life and world as a cosmic battle between good and evil has tragic consequences Think 1, 2, 3, NOT simpler Seek to understand the oneness behind diversity, the two sides of every opposition, the creation of many Analyze behind sequence of events, who and what are opposites, what is the ever present third Act. Oppose and accept opposition. Connect and conserve.

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B I O S Creation a Study of World Scientific Hector Sabelli Hector_Sabelli@rush.edu  http://creativebios.com