Creativity and sadness

I was on Bluesky the other day and I came across this video from the master filmmaker David Lynch entitled “Depression kills creativity.” It’s a great watch, and it talks about the fact that artists and other creatives can’t create when they’re depressed.

But, you say, doesn’t depression fuel artistic genius? Personally, I’ve had at least two people ask me, as a therapist, if they’ll lose their creativity if they get medicated for their mental illness. I used to worry about it myself.

Well. Let’s talk about that.

What’s the evidence?

People get hung up on artists like Monet (depression) or Van Gogh (bipolar disorder) or writers like Hemingway (bipolar disorder) or Sylvia Plath (depression) or—well, I could name a lot. Anecdotally, at least, there seems to be a link between artistic genius and mental illness.

Empirically, if you look at various peer-reviewed articles, the jury is out, citing insufficient cases for statistical analysis. That is, there’s no empirical evidence, at this time, to suggest a correlation between mental illness and artistic expression.

Even if we just look at their art, take Van Gogh, for example. As far as we know, his beautiful works were not created while he was in a depressive episode.1

My thoughts

So what about those of us who do unite those two realms? The depressed artists. The writers with mania or schizophrenia. Well, there’s a question to be asked: how much art/writing do you actually get done while you’re actively symptomatic? I’m guessing, not much. For me, when I’m in a depressive episode, I can barely wash my hair, let alone pen the next great American novel.

What is true is that my mental illness informs my art, similar to how being an immigrant or an oldest child might inform you art. It doesn’t make my art better, just different. I come from a different perspective. But I can only do that work when I’m out of my episodes.

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The bottom line

I choose treatment. For me, it’s therapy and meds. For you, it might look different. But the bottom line is: there is no evidence that depression improves creativity, and every evidence that depressed people do their best art when they’re happy and thriving.

If you want help, some resources are below!

National Suicide Crisis Hotline website (or call 988 in USA)

Info on treatments from the National Alliance on Mental Health