[.ca] Manic Depression And Creativity (ISBN 1573922412)

Rename:
I read this book as a hard cover when it was aptly named The Key to Genius Manic Depression and the Creative Life. I found it very informative and well written in layman's terms. In the end one learns that nothing comes easy and with out a price even for the best of them. Hershman delivers them as artists and Lieb dissects them as a scientist. I did earn this, genius is a funny thing. In the beginning you think it's crazy as time passes and evolution sets in, you realize that we just did not have the ability to comprehend at the time. As the Cliche goes "genius is never realized in its own time". For those who have delusions of how great it would be to be a genius be prepared to be disillusioned. You feel for these people and the suffering they had endured to bring us their work that we so love. It leaves one humbled. All in all "WOW" an enlightening read.

Much needed:
While we have some great examples of depression and its link to creativity (think Conroy's "Prince of Tides" or "The Bark of the Dogwood"), there hasn't been enough written about this subject from the perspective that Hershman and Lieb give us. This book is an overview of four talented and well-know men--Newton, Beethoven, Dickens, and Van Gogh. I'm sure the list of manic depressive creative persons is miles longer, but the book focuses on these four. This is an extremely valuable book for anyone attempting to understand the creative mind and how it works (or doesn't). Highly recommended along with "Touched with Fire."

Good Biographical Conjecture:
This book is an essential building block in understanding artistic temperment and the fomentation of (recognized) genius. The authors have eschewed egalitarian premises and psychoanalytical posturing to bring the reader as unbiased a viewpoint as possible while still offering correlations between typical mood affectivity and the amusing/confusing personalities of these four luminaries. After reading this book, my interest in the subjects, both of these specific historical characters and of the psychiatric relationship of genius to mood disorder, was most assuredly heightened. I'd qualify this book as appropriate for any level of scholarship. It's entertaining, informative and contains some profoundly original thoughts, which is always a pleasure to encounter. My one great criticism of the book is based on the Dr.'s wholesale endorsement of psychotropic drug therapy which I find to be a little professionally self-serving coming from a profession mired in misdiagnoses that labors under gross inaccuracies at the academic research publish-or-perish journal level and, in their compounded professional ignorance, they rely on patently dangerous drug-based therapies as all-encompassing Panaceas, which they are not.

Good Biographical Conjecture:
This book is an essential building block in understanding artistic temperment and the fomentation of (recognized) genius. The authors have eschewed egalitarian premises and psychoanalytical posturing to bring the reader as unbiased a viewpoint as possible while still offering correlations between typical mood affectivity and the amusing/confusing personalities of these four luminaries. After reading this book, my interest in the subjects -- of these specific historical characters and of the psychiatric relationship of genius to mood disorder -- was most assuredly heightened. I'd qualify this book as appropriate for any level of scholarship. It's entertaining, informative and contains some profoundly original thoughts, which are always a pleasure to encounter. My one great criticism of the book is based on the Dr.'s wholesale endorsement of psychotropic drug therapy which I find to be a little professionally self-serving and irresponsible coming from a profession mired in misdiagnoses that labors under gross inaccuracies proliferated at the academic publish-or-perish research journal level and, in their compounded professional ignorance, they rely on patently dangerous drug-based therapies as all-encompassing Panaceas, which they are not.