Many people experience mental health and emotional health challenges – at least 1 in 5 of us, according to some studies.
Those who are actively creative people such as professional artists may be especially vulnerable to anxiety, depression and other disorders and disruptions.
The mythology of the “mad artist” has a long history, and is supported to some extent by research on mood disorders in various professsions, and by the experiences of mental illness shared by many creative people.
But it is also a dangerous and wrong idea that we need to be in pain or “crazy” to be creative.
Musician Sting says “People who are getting into this archetype of the tortured poet end up really torturing themselves to death.” – From article Do We Need Mental or Emotional Pain To Be Creative?
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The photo above is musician and actor and musician Selena Gomez who has been open about her struggle with bipolar disorder, and the values of getting treatment.
“I went to one of the best mental hospitals in the world…after years of going through a lot of different things I realized that I was bipolar…
“I tried to use the tools that I’ve used when I’ve been in therapy, which is amazing. Dialectical behavior therapy helps big time. It’s about how you process your emotions and thoughts turning into actions.
“I visualize things so much it freaks me out. I have to center myself and let the thoughts come in, sometimes I write them down, and then sit with it and why I can’t get to the bottom of this.”
From article “Selena Gomez Reveals Bipolar Diagnosis During Candid Chat With Miley Cyrus” By Sarah Hearon, US Mag. April 3, 2020.
The photo at top is from article “Selena Gomez & Her Mother Debut Wondermind Mental Health Company” By Allie Fasanella April 4, 2022.
About Wondermind: wondermind.com twitter.com/letswondermind
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Three artists on supporting their mental health with choices and therapy
This audio includes clips from three video interviews:
Jameela Jamil on unfollowing toxic people, when to cut people off, self-care, managing mental health
Jameela Jamil: “What do I do to manage my mental health? So I’ve had therapy…EMDR therapy. That’s eye movement desensitization reprocessing therapy. I also have unfollowed anyone who triggers me on social media…”
Think You Need Therapy? First Watch This
Russell Brand: “Most therapy I’ve been fortunate enough to have, particularly as an adult since i’ve been earning money, I paid for. But what I tell you is this: Many of us don’t address the deep motivations and fears that are secretly governing our lives…”
Selena Gomez on How To Stop Insecurity & Truly Love Yourself To The Core
Jay Shetty – the On Purpose Podcast.
Selena Gomez: “I think that I just have to understand that my fears are only going to continue to show me what I’m capable of; the more that I face my fears the more that I feel I’m gaining strength, I’m gaining wisdom and I just want to keep doing that…”
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Harry Styles
‘When Styles began therapy about five years ago, he was reluctant initially, feeling it was a music industry cliché.
“I thought it meant that you were broken,” he said. “I wanted to be the one who could say I didn’t need it.”
‘He returned to the home theme that has underpinned our conversation, explaining that therapy has allowed him to “open up rooms in himself” that he didn’t know existed, allowed him to feel things more honestly, where before he had tended to”emotionally coast.”
‘He said, “I think that accepting living, being happy, hurting in the extremes, that is the most alive you can be. Losing it crying, losing it laughing—there’s no way, I don think, to feel more alive than that.”
From article: Exclusive: Harry Styles Reveals the Meaning Behind His New Album, ‘Harry’s House’ By Lou Stoppard, Better Homes & Gardens April 26, 2022.
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What do psychologists and artists say about this complex topic?
Psychotherapist Mihaela Ivan Holtz helps creative people in TV/Film, performing and fine arts.
She writes in one of her many articles on the inner life of creators:
As a professional creative or performer, you want to live with meaning and purpose.
“You long to express your creativity, to follow your heart, and live out your biggest dreams.
“You know you have something important to share with the world…
“It’s through the language of art that you touch minds and transform the world.
“However, you don’t always have full access to your creativity and the full range of your emotions.
“And, when you feel “blocked” and separate from your inspiration and from your artistic self it can trigger emotional conflicts that can interfere with your ability to create or perform….
“Therapy can help you:
- Dissolve your creative blocks and develop a healthier, deeper, and more productive connection to your creativity
- Overcome performance anxiety or other performance issues to perform with more authenticity
- Navigate the demands of your artistic career and create more opportunities and success
- Discover who you are as an artist and how your unique talents can facilitates your artistic journey…”
See more in her article Are Your Emotional Issues Affecting your Creativity and Artistic Career? Psychotherapy Can Help by Mihaela Ivan Holtz, Psy.D., LMFT.
Like many therapists, Dr Holtz provides both in-person and online counseling.
See post How Online Therapy Helps With Emotional Health, Stress Relief and Personal Growth with more of her comments, and another link to her site, plus link to online therapy site Talkspace.
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The caption for the PBS video “Connecting strength and vulnerability of the creative brain” (source of the image at right) asks:
“Why have so many creative minds suffered from mental illness?
“Nancy Andreasen, Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa, has devoted decades of study to the physical differences in the brains of writers and other highly accomplished individuals.”
Cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman addresses this topic in a post:
“I do believe that If the mental processes associated with psychosis were evaporated entirely from this world, art would suck. But so would a lot of other things that require imagination.”
He notes that psychosis is on a continuum:
“Too much psychosis and one is at high risk of going mad. But everyone engages in psychosis-related thought any time they use their imagination.
See the PBS video, other quotes by Dr. Kaufman, video: “Kristen Bell on Depression and Self Esteem” and much more in my article Madness and creativity: do we need to be crazy?
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A related video with psychologist Cheryl Arutt:
Video includes Selena Gomez, Dwayne Johnson, Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga and other artists.
Also see article Psychologist Cheryl Arutt on Emotional Health and Creative People.
And article How Can EMDR Therapy Relieve Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, Addiction and more?
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Artists and psychotherapy
“Acting is telling a story, and you’re part of telling that story.
“In some ways therapy helps more than acting class. You realize why you operate in certain ways.”
Heather Graham expressed one of the most valuable and positive reasons for therapy or counseling: knowing your emotions and inner dynamics better, so you can portray being a human more authentically.
From our interview (years ago) – see more in my article How can psychotherapy benefit actors and other artists?
Graham’s screenwriting and directorial debut movie is Half Magic.
Photo is from article about the movie: It Took Heather Graham Years To Make A Movie About Women Ditching Toxic Men. The Reason? Men. By Kelsea Stahler, Bustle, Feb. 2018.
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“I love being in therapy. It’s just constantly fulfilling for me.”
~ Jennifer Jason Leigh
In an interview, she adds:
“I’m a typical middle child. I’m the mediator. The one that makes everything OK, puts their own needs aside to make sure everybody’s happy.
“It’s hard to change your nature, even with years and years of therapy.”
(Interviewer: “Have you had years and years of therapy?”)
“Oh sure, I’ve been in therapy for years.”
“What for?”
“She looks at me a bit bemused, and very slightly shakes her head. I can’t make out whether that’s at the nosiness of my question, or the idea that I don’t know what the point of therapy is.”
From What you see and what you get by Zoe Williams, the Guardian 11 Mar 2005.
Photo from Jennifer Jason Leigh: ‘I’ve been at this precipice so many times’, the Guardian 2 Jan 2016.
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Claire Danes once made a succinct comment about the value of therapy:
“My therapist gives me permission to accept that I’m human.”
From article: Learning to Befriend Our Inner Demons.
An article notes she “has headlined Showtimes’ Homeland as CIA agent Carrie Mathison.
“Her character is bipolar; a trait not often written in to leading characters and its been noted how delicately Claire has handled it.
“Dealing with challenges through therapy is something Claire has been preparing for almost her whole life: She has been in therapy since she was 6 years old:
“I’ve always been deeply interested in psychology and how we work… I do it because it’s a helpful tool and a luxury to self-reflect and get some insight. But there have been points in my life when it was really essential.”
Claire Danes has been in therapy since she was 6 years old: ‘it’s a helpful tool’, Celebitchy December 04, 2015.
Photo from Claire Danes for The Edit Magazine by Steven Pan.
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A ‘crazy, emotional, larger-than-life existence‘
“She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?” Norman Bates in Psycho (the 1960 movie).
As a prequel to the film, the TV series Bates Motel (2013-2017) portrays how Norman Bates’ psyche “unravels through his teenage years” under the influence of his mother, Norma.
Kerry Ehrin is a creator, writer, producer and showrunner of “Bates Motel” and writes about the personal influences that helped her create such emotionally rich characters.
“…writing a couple of crazy people started getting terribly personal. The first thing I had to do when trying to find Norma Bates on paper was to forget that I’d had therapy.
“Sure, therapy is great, and it saved my life and blah, blah, blah. But getting ‘healthy’ definitely knocks a lot of the fun out of your life.
“And I missed it; the crazy, emotional, larger-than-life existence that was too big and too exhausting to fit into the real world in any productive way.
“Enter Norma Bates: the perfect vehicle for every crazy thing I’ve ever felt or done.
“She could be mercurial, fierce, insecure, recklessly sexual, passionately maternal, wildly brave and incredibly fragile all at once.”
Ehrin explains:
“Although my childhood was nowhere near as bleak as Norma’s, I did grow up in an environment that, along with many wonderful elements, included chaos, rage, alcohol abuse, broken hearts and the hamster wheel of hoping that it would be different because you loved the hell out of everyone in the house and wanted to fix it for them.
“I attached that to Norma and Norman.
“That feeling of being so bonded to your ally in a dysfunctional family that you might die without them. Those bonds have tremendous power and are often co-dependent.
“Co-dependence gets a lot of bad press, but it also has incredible power and larger-than-life beauty and meaning when you are on the inside of it, so much so that ‘normal,’ healthy relationships often pale in comparison.”
From her article Delving deep for Norma’s voice on ‘Bates Motel’.
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Ehrin’s comment about missing the “craziness” reminds me of another artist:
The late actor, novelist, script consultant, screenwriter, and performance artist Carrie Fisher experienced depression and other mental health challenges in her life, and commented:
“The manic end of is a lot of fun. I try to encourage people to envy my mania. A lot of it is just fantastic.”
From post: Carrie Fisher: “Mental illness is not all bad.”
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Halle Berry said she recalls being terrified that her violent father, who physically abused her mother, would turn on her, adding,
“I think I’ve spent my adult life dealing with the sense of low self-esteem that sort of implanted in me. Somehow I felt not worthy.”
Quoted in post: Creative People and Trauma.
She has talked about some of the issues that people help work through in counseling:
“I’ve done therapy on an as-needed basis since I was probably 10 years old.
“My father was an alcoholic and a very abusive one, and my mother knew the value of providing me with the outlet of an unbiased person to talk to, so I’ve done that all my life when times get stressful. It really helps me deal with stuff.”
She also said,
“I try really hard not to take my problems out on others and, in order to do that, I tend to mask the bad stuff or deal with it internally – you know, keep my chin up, put on a brave face and just keep going.
“If I do have a problem, I handle it so well that most other people don’t even know about it.”
‘I’ve been in therapy for 30 years’: Halle Berry on her troubled childhood with abusive alcoholic father, Daily Mail 26 March 2013.
Creative work as therapy
Berry commented about acting in her intense movie “Gothika” (2003):
“Although physically I would feel exhausted and tired, my back would hurt, my arms would hurt and my feet would be raw from running through all the stuff, there was still something about it that felt good, like I had a cathartic experience.
“I got a lot of stuff out of me that was pent up in little corners of myself, so I felt good at the same time.”
Quoted in my article The Alchemy of Art: Creative Expression and Healing.
Photo from her Facebook page.
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Using creativity to enhance mental health
Dealing with Trauma
Pretty much all of us experience some kind of trauma in life; how does creative expression help people heal and recover? And how do people make use of traumatic experiences in their creative work?
Several years ago, I did an interview with psychologist Stephen A. Diamond that probably started my interest in this topic of trauma and creativity.
He writes about a number of prominent and accomplished artists who express their demons, their inner and outer conflicts, in positive ways.
One example he gives is French sculptor, painter, and film maker Niki de Saint Phalle (‘du san fal’, 1930-2002).
He noted her famous ‘shooting paintings’ resulted from firing live ammunition at paint-filled balloons mounted on canvas.
Dr. Diamond commented that “rather than becoming a crazed killer or vengeful victimizer of men, de St. Phalle’s fury — some of which stemmed from having been sexually abused by her father — fostered a fecund creativity, that served her well throughout her prolific career.”
He talks about how rage, when “channeled into their work, gives it the intensity and passion that performing artists such as actors and actresses seek.”
Audio interview: Stephen Diamond on Anger, Inner Chaos and Creativity.
Text transcript of interview: The Psychology of Creativity: Redeeming Our Inner Demons.
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SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) is an artist and bestselling author of fifteen books. She notes, “I’m a survivor of incest. That was a period of seven years and it pretty much, at that point, destroyed my life. Then, from the ages of 14 to 26, I had 250 different jobs because I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do [with my life].
“During that time period I was also living a very self-destructive life and I wasn’t at all creative in any kind of physically manifested way. At 26 I finally turned to dedicate myself to art and writing, and proceeded for the next ten years to be rejected in every way that you could be.”
She said she knows that art is healing “because of how it heals me and how I see it healing other people every day. Through art, we come alive through the deep connections to our souls and spirits.”
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The Mental Health Channel is an online network presenting inspiring true stories with a mission to “Create engaging, enlightening, informative programming, commercial free, to help all viewers improve their mental health.”
Here are two of their videos:
Express Yourself – “Willie Minor started acting to help overcome PTSD – and found his calling. 250 plays later, he’s still acting, directing and teaching others the healing power of self expression.”
Be Creative – “Creativity is the original antidepressant. Dr. Carrie Barron shows us how creative expression takes all forms, as she reunites with a friend for her first musical performance in decades.”
Related book:
The Creativity Cure: How To Build Happiness With Your Own Two Hands
“Husband-and-wife physicians Carrie and Alton Barron draw upon the latest psychological research, a combined forty years of medical practice, and personal experience to reveal that creative action is integral to easing depression and anxiety and to fueling wellbeing.” [Summary from carriebarronmd.com]
In an interview, Carrie Barron addresses the question of how creative work can involve anxiety and other strong feelings, but also provide relief. She said:
“There are many stages to the creative process; some involve a letting go, some a reining in. There is divergent and convergent thinking. If we feel blocked, apprehensive about how our product will be received, frustrated by what feels like an unsolvable problem, we can feel anxious and depressed.
“The trick is to teach yourself to have tolerance for these uncomfortable phases, move through them with trust and patience until you get to the idea that grabs, holds and guides you through. When you reach that place, agitations and stresses decrease and a more balanced, positive view can ensue. Absorption in a project that interests you can be an antidote for oppressive states of mind.”
From article: Tea for Creatives: Carrie Barron has a Creativity Cure by Possibiliteas.
More perspectives by Carrie Barron, M.D. – from description of her online class “How to Uncover the Unconscious and Release Creativity”:
“The unconscious is a treasure trove of novel ideas, innovations, odd combinations and original thought. It is where instincts, passions, wishes and dreams reside.
“Accessing the unconscious through honoring dreams, intuition and wispy random thoughts can help us be more creative, authentic and content.”
From post: Collaborating With Our Shadow Side.
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More resources:
See more than 25 posts on this site The Creative Mind in the category Mental Health.
Artists and Addiction – Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edie Falco, Russell Brand, Tatum O’Neal, Johnny Depp, Ed Harris, Michael J. Fox, Robert Downey Jr., Faye Dunaway, Carrie Fisher, Colin Farrell, Lynda Carter and other artists, plus comments by psychologists. Also links to resources: books, articles, programs.
Articles by Cheryl Arutt:
Affect Regulation and the Creative Artist
The Artist’s Unconscious and the Metaphor of Birth
Site: www.drcherylarutt.com
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More articles and resources for emotional health
The Psychology of Creativity: Redeeming Our Inner Demons – An interview with Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. by Douglas Eby
A clinical and forensic psychologist, Stephen Diamond works with many talented individuals committed to becoming more creative.
And, as he explains in his book, “Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic,” our impulse to be creative “can be understood to some degree as the subjective struggle to give form, structure and constructive expression to inner and outer chaos and conflict.”
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Creative People, Trauma and Mental Health –
Pretty much all of us experience some kind of trauma in life. How does creative expression help people deal with it? How do people make use of traumatic experiences in their creative work?
Trauma takes many forms, and has different sources and levels of impact for each of us. Many artists have experienced rape, physical abuse and other experiences, including Patrick Stewart, SARK, Halle Berry, Amber Tamblyn, Lady Gaga, will.i.am, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonathan Safran Foer, J. K. Rowling and many others.
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Emotional Health Resources
Programs, books, articles and sites to improve your emotional wellbeing.
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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