ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a number of interlacing themes connecting creativity to psychosis. The link between madness and creativity has been the subject of an age old and controversial debate which, even in the relatively recent literature, has stimulated numerous books, review papers, and scientific articles. Madness – or psychosis as it is more technically known – is one of the most mysterious mental disorders of humankind. Descriptions of madness stretch back to antiquity, but its scientific study started in the late 19th century, with the emergence of an experimental psychopathology that was a meeting point between psychiatry and a newly born psychology. While clinical psychosis can indeed destroy creativity, psychoticism may enhance it. The hope for an organic explanation of psychosis was inspired by a significant early breakthrough in psychiatric research: the discovery that one 'mental syndrome', General Paralysis of the Insane, was actually due to syphilis infection affecting the central nervous system.
