Profs & Pints San Francisco: Creativity, Moods, and Mania

Profs and Pints San Francisco presents: “Creativity, Moods, and Mania,” an exploration of how depression, mania, and everyday ups and downs influence different types of creativity, with Sheri L. Johnson, distinguished professor of psychology and director of a bipolar disorder research program at the University of California at Berkeley. 

Ancient quotes on creativity, moods and mood disorders abound. Aristotle wrote, “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” Lord Byron, describing poets, later observed, “We of the craft are all crazy. Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched.”   

But is there really a link between moods, mood disorders, and creativity? What does modern science have to say about the subject? 

Explore such questions with Dr. Sheri L. Johnson, director of the CALM (Cal Mania) Program at UC-Berkeley. Her research there studies how mood—especially the highs and lows of bipolar disorder—shapes people’s lives, including their creativity, goals, and well-being, as well as what mechanisms contribute to mood episodes and recovery.

She'll begin with a discussion of how scientists measure creativity in life and in the laboratory, describing what we have learned from hundreds of experimental studies on creativity and mood. Some findings indicate that happiness, at modest levels, can help foster creativity, while negative moods can interfere with it. We’ll consider how we can draw from these scientific findings to protect our own creativity. 

Turning to mood disorders, Professor Johnson will describe how mania was a well-documented part of the lives of major creative figures such as Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allen Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and Alfred Tennyson. 

Beyond biographical summaries, she’ll highlight findings of a country-wide study of the Swedish population which connected higher creativity to a personal and family history of bipolar disorder. She’ll also outline findings of studies designed to test why mood disorders might relate to creativity, and we’ll consider the evidence so far on whether medications for bipolar disorder help or hinder creativity among those with a history of mania. (Tickets available only online. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5:30 and the talk begins at 6:30. Parking available nearby at the Mason O'Farrell garage.)

Image: From a self-portrait painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1889 after slicing off his own ear (Courtald Institute of Art / Wikimedia ).

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