Creativity and the Schizophrenia Spectrum: More and More Interesting

There is great promise in the articles from this special issue and their focus on schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and creativity. It becomes all the more important, then, to proceed with caution and to do good service to patients, their families, and, indeed, to our greater human potential. After a note on the study of bipolar disorders and creativity, I introduce 8 general considerations regarding creativity-pathology relations, followed by 8 specific points about the theoretical articles on schizophrenia spectrum. I bring in findings from the only empirical article in this set that actually involves participants at risk for schizophrenia, for which I was co-investigator. It is possible that familial schizophrenic risk carries "creative advantages" distinct from (and potentially combinable with) those related to bipolar disorders, advantages that are again broad and valuable in everyday life and from which we may all learn. However, one must take care to define issues fully, replicate important data, and to not "throw out the baby with the bath water" by creating artificial either-or situations between schizophrenia-spectrum and bipolar-spectrum disorders. There may be new worlds that await us in situations we are only beginning to understand.