I write to bring to limelight the perception of an African society on the relationship between creativity and mental illness -(Creative people are prone to mental illness) and how recent studies had justified or refuted the perception.
In a typical African setting, some people believe that individuals of exceptional talents are prone to mental illness and behavioural disorders. A life story on this is about a man who is well endowed with exceptional talent and had always beating above the board and setting records in schools. He had studied Medical sciences and emerged overall best in the school, he had also studied Physics and Astronomy and set an unbeaten records till date.
In relation with his exceptional gift, he had exhibited a certain feature of a mental illness such as AUTISM. He had always thought of him self in his own world where no one else's opinions matters to him. This can be justified with his idea of studying Physics after studying Medicine and surgery. Today he is practising non of them.
Professionals and non- professionals in a recent publication shows that a relationship exists between creativity and mental illness. There was a divide among professional participants as to whether creative persons are prone to mental illness or not. There also appears to be a strong consensus of opinion that mentally ill persons are not significantly more creative than others rather that there is a possible therapeutic effects of engaging in creative activities for mentally ill persons. . Look out for details @ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115292/
