Bipolar Today

Nassir Ghaemi has written a new book called “A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness“, which examines the connection between mood disorders and mental illnesses. This isn’t just an amateur work, either. Dr. Ghamei runs the mood disorders program at the prestigious Tufts Medical Center. He argues that leaders who have mental illnesses are often well-served by those very illnesses in times of crisis. Depression gives them what he calls “realism”, which helped Lincoln and Churchill and mania (or at least hypomania) gives creativity, which helped Sherman and Ted Turner. The site “Life Goes Strong” also has a discussion of the book

Commentary

In a way, this provides a thesis similar to the thesis argued by Kay Redfield Jamison that bipolar disorder improves creativity in her book “Touched with Fire“. Bipolar disorder can have some good points as a result of their condition, not merely bad ones. What Dr. Ghamei adds is that depression can also be positive when it comes to world leaders; most previous discussions have focussed on mania.

I have a slight twinge of concern, however. The moods that come from bipolar disorder are pathological. They can’t be counted on and, though positive in themselves, are a part of an illness that overall causes a great deal of suffering (something that Dr. Jamison notes as well). It’s also important to note that most poets, for example, are not mentally ill. My concern with a book like this is that it separates off mentally ill people from people without mental illness, giving mentally ill people almost special powers. While the creativity that comes from hypomania and the realism that comes from depression are both good traits, we would still be better off if we had those traits in a non-pathological way.

Related posts:

1. Creativity-Based Treatments?
2. “Double Time” by Jane Roper: Being Bipolar and Raising Twins
3. New Biography of Virginia Woolf Discusses Bipolar Disorder and Loss
4. Pete Earley Discusses His Book “Crazy”
5. Bipolar Law Professor Writes Book About Stigma and Discrimination