Madness Redefined

This is a fascinating discussion: (start at 12 minutes 55 seconds)
http://worldsciencefestival.com/webcasts/madness_redefined


Video streaming by Ustream

An interesting topic:

"The notion of a “tortured genius” or “mad scientist” may be more than a romantic aberration. Mounting studies have established that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia correlate with high creativity and intelligence. Join leading researchers as they examine the shifting spectrum between brilliance and madness."

And a fascinating group of people:

Elyn Saks
What a wonderful, positive person. Incredibly insightful, gifted and clear. You can see her struggle, and her brilliance in spite of it.

James Fallon
Absolutely high the whole time. A case study in mania. As someone who has experienced being manic it's almost painful to watch him speak. The contrast with his colleagues on the panel that are actually managing their bipolar or schizophrenia is staggering. He is a bipolar sufferer who doesn't really realise he's suffering and thinks everything's great because he's manic. The credibility of the other panellists slams his to the ground. Watching him really reinforces my decision to manage my condition with medication, despite the loss of the perceived fun of mania.

Kay Jamison
Very down to earth, and clearly driving an agenda. Albeit a great agenda with a well reasoned argument. That is to treat bipolar and schizophrenia as illnesses, and not to romanticize them with the possible links to creativity.

I absolutely loved this statement from Elyn:

"for me always though I've always had social judgement, so I've known what people would think was crazy and I didn't want to appear crazy so I didn't say it out-loud except to my therapist. So that way I was able to kind of make my way through a professional world having crazy beliefs but not antagonising or alienating the rest of my environment because I always knew what would be seen as crazy, even though I didn't think it was."
Elyn Saks - 1 hr, 32 mins in

And this is a nicely put illustration of the deleterious nature of manic episodes:

"If you don't get treated, these illnesses are really bad for your brain. If you look at brain scan on 1 mania and your brain scan on 8 manias, you want your brain on 1 mania. You want to be able to prevent those manias. So these are very damaging, potentially lethal illnesses."
Kay Jamison - 38 mins in

If you have the time to watch it, I highly recommend it. Some brilliant people with interesting minds and lives.