Touched With Fire
Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
Published on 18. October 1996
384 pages
978-1-4391-0663-1 (ISBN)
Description
The definitive work on the profound and surprising links between manic-depression and creativity, from the bestselling psychologist of bipolar disorders who wrote An Unquiet Mind.
One of the foremost psychologists in America, ?Kay Jamison is plainly among the few who have a profound understanding of the relationship that exists between art and madness? (William Styron).
The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Her work, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness.
Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists including Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, and Virginia Woolf.
One of the foremost psychologists in America, ?Kay Jamison is plainly among the few who have a profound understanding of the relationship that exists between art and madness? (William Styron).
The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Her work, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness.
Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists including Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, and Virginia Woolf.
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Book
12/1996
The Free Press
€19.50
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, is the bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind, Touched with Fire, and other books. She is a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and has been named a ?Hero of Medicine? by Time.
Content
- Intro
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- 1. That Fine Madness
- Introduction
- 2. Endless Night, Fierce Fires and Shramming Cold
- Manic-Depressive Illness
- 3. Could it be Madness-This?
- Controversy and Evidence
- 4. Their Life a Storm Whereon they Ride
- Temperament and Imagination
- 5. The Mind's Canker in Its Savage Mood
- George Gordon, Lord Byron
- 6. Genealogies of These High Mortal Miseries
- The Inheritance of Manic-Depressive Illness
- 7. This NET Throwne Upon the Heavens
- Medicine and the Arts
- Appendixes
- A. Diagnostic Criteria for the Major Mood Disorders
- B. Writers, Artists, and Composers with Probable Cyclothymia, Major Depression, or Manic-Depressive Illness
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Index
- Copyright
