BIPOLAR CREATIVITY

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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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CREATION natural and human
ACTION BIPOLARITY, CONNECTION
DEVELOPMENT (simple origin, new, unique, and
complex outcome)
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Ingrid Garcia-Moya Freshness. Abstract Mind
Mural. 2006
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Creation is a tree
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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
46330356. 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 HymanJack Irons, Daniel Johnston, Otto
Klemperer, Oscar Levant, Phil, John Ogden, Jaco
PastoriusCharley 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
togetherphysical and mental energy (biological
and psychological treatment must go
together)Consider togetherchanges in energy
and in tempoAgency (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
BipolarityMore 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
Connectionsinterpersonal (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
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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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Electrocardiogram measure heartbeat intervals
(R to R interval RRI)
Sequence of Human heartbeat intervals
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Magdalena Fernandez Common places
Human heartbeat intervals decomposed into their
opposite components
Mandala the wheel of opposites is a cosmic order
in nature and in art
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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
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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

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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 ROOTSACTION arrows
BIPOLARITY positive/negative, left/right,
woman/man, manic/depressive creating cycles
(wheels, engines) CONNECTION (folds, knots,
bodies )
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DEPRESSION by Veronica Riedel
A gray existence A black mood Thinking in black
and white fosters depression and aggression
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Beyond two opposites

• 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

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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

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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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Three roots, continuing creation

• 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
• 5the cerebral cortex constructs many colors from
  these 4 basic colors, and as one learns painting,
  one learns to distinguish more and more colors

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Three roots, continuing creation

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

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Personal choices, National choices Love or war?
Joy or fear? Affection or greed? Peace or
depression?
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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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Hector Sabelli
B I O S
a Study of
Creation
Hector_Sabelli_at_rush.edu  http//creativebios.com

World Scientific