Key points

• The relationship between depression and creativity remains blurry.
• Bipolar depression is especially associated with creativity, particularly during manic moods.
• People who receive higher education in the arts may be more likely to struggle with depression.
• Some have suggested that mild depression may enhance creativity while severe spells are more likely to hinder.

There is a trope of the melancholic artist giving the impression that to access beauty in our minds, we must pass through darkness. Some creatives fear that treatment for depression will banish this edge. Yet, the relationship between depression and creativity is much more cloudy.

At times, depression has cast my thoughts into a wad of paper. Looming sadness, low energy, and dimmed motivation aren’t exactly a recipe for innovation. Like many, I have turned to expressive arts during my lows, discovering new insights about myself, the world, and others that I may not have encountered in other states of mind. Yet, during my deepest lows, reaching for a pencil or paintbrush takes about the same strength as fifty push-ups.

Depression on Creativity

The status between depression and creativity is complicated, to say the least. A study of 4.45 million Swedish people using population data found that individuals who received higher education in art were significantly more likely to carry a diagnosis of depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia than those who hadn’t (MacCabe and colleagues, 2018). Others have suggested that while mild or moderate illness may enhance imaginative capacity, severe levels can hinder it (Holm-Hadulla and colleagues, 2021).

Objectively measuring creativity is tricky. Simply asking someone to rate their creativity on a self-report lacks validity and reliability. This may be especially true in scenarios of depression, wherein participants may be primed to view their own abilities more negatively. Still, when approached in this way, individuals endorsing high levels of depression also often endorse high levels of creativity. A study of college students in China during the COVID-19 pandemic found a correlation between high reports on a self-rated scale of depression and a self-report scale of creativity (the Runco Ideational Behavior Scale) (Xu and colleagues, 2021).

Some researchers have attempted to measure creativity through specific tasks of creative problem-solving, which is also tricky. As a complex set of capacities and traits, it is difficult to wrangle the dragon of ingenuity into a particular assignment. Nonetheless, a study exploring creativity and depression using such a measure found that depression negatively correlated with performance on the instrument (Lam and Saunders, 2024).

Bipolar Versus Unipolar Depression

Depressive disorders can be divided into two main categories: unipolar (major depression and persistent depression) and bipolar disorder (bipolar I, bipolar II, and cyclothymia). While both sets of conditions are associated with lows, bipolar disorder also carries highs (mania or hypomania).

Of all conditions involving depression, bipolar depression has been most robustly linked to creativity.

A meta-analysis of studies examining divergent thinking and bipolar disorder found a clear link (Forthmann and colleagues, 2023). Still, this effect was most pronounced when participants were in a ‘high’ or stable mood (mania, hypomania, or euthymia). In contrast, depressive moods seemed to inhibit divergent thinking.

Creativity on Depression

When investigating a connection between creativity and depression, we would be remiss to consider relatedness in another direction, namely, the utility that creativity has in healing depression. I am not alone in my appreciation of writing, painting, and music as tools to combat my depression. Many seek out expressive pursuits—poetry to ceramics—as a lifeline during depressive episodes.

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Further, formal arts therapies have been a popular treatment modality for depression for decades. Research into its effectiveness has indicated promising results (Nan and Ho, 2017). Neurological research has demonstrated that engagement with art therapies may strengthen activity in brain regions associated with emotion regulation, including the medial prefrontal cortex (Barnett and Basiu, 2024). Furthermore, art therapies are believed to engage more abstract processes of self-exploration and symbolic thinking in healing psychological pain (Blomdahl and colleagues, 2013). The effects are multidimensional.

Perhaps, in addition to (or in place of) the direct effect that depression may have on creativity, there is a parallel effect on those experiencing depression that utilizes artistic creativity as a resource to heal and find innovation in the process.

References

Barnett, K. S., & Vasiu, F. (2024). How the arts heal: a review of the neural mechanisms behind the therapeutic effects of creative arts on mental and physical health. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 18, 1422361.

Blomdahl, C., Gunnarsson, A. B., Guregård, S., & Björklund, A. (2013). A realist review of art therapy for clients with depression. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 40(3), 322-330.

Holm-Hadulla, R. M., Hofmann, F. H., Sperth, M., & Mayer, C. H. (2021). Creativity and psychopathology: An interdisciplinary view. Psychopathology, 54(1), 39-46.

Forthmann, B., Kaczykowski, K., Benedek, M., & Holling, H. (2023). The Manic Idea Creator? A Review and Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Bipolar Disorder and Creative Cognitive Potential. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(13), 6264.

Lam, C. Y., & Saunders, J. A. (2024). Relationship Between Creativity and Depression: The Role of Reappraisal and Rumination. Collabra: Psychology, 10(1), 122515.

MacCabe, J. H., Sariaslan, A., Almqvist, C., Lichtenstein, P., Larsson, H., & Kyaga, S. (2018). Artistic creativity and risk for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and unipolar depression: A Swedish population-based case–control study and sib-pair analysis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 212(6), 370-376.

Nan, J. K., & Ho, R. T. (2017). Effects of clay art therapy on adults outpatients with major depressive disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Affective Disorders, 217, 237-245.

Xu, Y., Shao, J., Zeng, W., Wu, X., Huang, D., Zeng, Y., & Wu, J. (2021). Depression and creativity during COVID-19: psychological resilience as a mediator and deliberate rumination as a moderator. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 665961.