Self-Disorders, Imagination, and Creativity in Professional Visual Artists: An Exploratory Phenomenological Study

Epidemiological studies have reported associations between creativity and genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders. Alterations of selfhood have been proposed as a possible link between these phenomena. In this explorative study, we examined disturbances of basic selfhood and imagination, as well as general psychopathology, in a non-clinical sample of professional visual artists.

Ten visual artists, exhibiting at prestigious galleries, were recruited through professional networks. They underwent a comprehensive interview assessment of psychopathology, including the Present State Examination (PSE), the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE), the Examination of Anomalous Fantasy and Imagination (EAFI), and a qualitative interview exploring the creative working process.

Four participants described a moderate to high level of self-disorders and/or anomalies of imagination and described an involvement of these experiences in their creative working process. The participants met ICD-10 research criteria for lifetime diagnoses of mood, anxiety, and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.

The findings are exploratory and based on a small sample. Drawing on phenomenological considerations, we tentatively suggest that, for some individuals, alterations of the pre-reflective structure of subjectivity may be related to creativity through subtle alienation from fundamental common sense categories, an inclination toward preoccupation with the imaginary, and a spatialized mode of experiencing the inner life.