Self-reflection may lead independently to creativity, depression

After reading this article which mentions that major depressive disorder is eight to 10 times more prevalent in writers and artists than in the general population, that leads to mental health researchers and practitioners to have a conclusion that long linked creativity with a higher risk for depression.

I don’t really agree to what the author has said because “a study in the June issue of Emotion (Vol. 5, No. 2) suggests that self-reflective rumination--a focus on the self and one's feelings--may explain artists' tendency toward depression, taking the blame off creativity itself.” This simply means that artist don’t believe that creativity could be one of the reason which leads to having depression. It simply meant that our creative mind is unable to be stretched to where we want it to be, which the inability to meet its “goal”, thus we would be depressed. Being creative is surely not one of the reasons.

“Depression is associated with inactivity, difficulty concentrating and lying in bed”, said a Stanford University researcher, whereas creative people are no inactive, majority are able to concentrate well and they are usually not on the bed. That is obviously a paradox thus how possible is it for one being creative leads to having depression? It seems to be quite unlikely actually.

Experiments have also been carried out by 99 undergraduates, and they merely need to complete questionnaires measuring current and past depressive symptoms, creative interests and self-reflective rumination. The students also participated in two creative behaviour tests that measure fluency of imagination and originality. And the end result showed that there’s no direct link between depression and creativity. However, self-reflection was correlated with both an increased risk for depression and an interest in, and talent for, creative behaviour.

Self-reflection should be done on one’s accord because that person should be willing enough to take in whatever comments given and self-reflect on his/her own. Surely not to bring himself/herself down, but just to evaluate to see how else one can strength and improve oneself.

-Yongqing!