Lecture
3.3. Theories of transnormality (from lat. Trans –per, per, norma –norm, rule) see the reasons for genius in various deviations from the actual mental, personal and social norm, in anomalies of physical, mental and spiritual health, in extraordinary circumstances of life, behavior and creativity geniuses
These theories see in the deviation from the norm the essential criterion and factor of genius and include ideas about both positive “normal abnormality” and ideas about the immanent pathology of a genius.
Theories of transnormality can be organized in the form of the original pentabase of the phenomenal worlds, each of which serves as the shaping context of a certain group of theories of genius, the essential dimension and the fundamental factor determining their content and qualitative originality.
Tab. 5. Transnormal Theories
Symbolic world Psychoanalytic theory |
Social world Conflict Theory |
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Culture Theory of Divine Madness and mad wisdom |
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Subject world Overcompensation theory |
Inner world Pathological theory |
3.3.1. The pathological theory of genius asserts that the basis of genius is all sorts of deviations from the norm, various disorders of physical and mental health, which manifest themselves in eccentricity of behavior, in neuroses and even mental illnesses and insanity. This concept has been expounded in detail and demonstrated by numerous examples in the books of C. Lambroso (1863), M. Nordau (1902), V. Lange-Eichbaum (1928), E. Krechmer (1931), D. Kenmare (1960), V. Grant (1968). The authors of this theory, on the basis of numerous, often tendentiously selected and subjectively interpreted facts, argue that genius is directly related to physical, mental or mental illness. The first psychiatrist, who analyzed the problem of genius, Moreau de Tours said that genius is a neurosis and the mental makeup of a genius and a madman is the same, C. Lambroso believed that there is much in common between the physiology of a genius and the pathology of a madman, V. Lange-Eyhbaum said: that practically all geniuses are psychopaths, according to E. Krechmer “psychopathological elements” are an obligatory part of genius, and M. Nordau directly stated that not every madman is a genius, but every genius is a madman.
1. Physical diseases. Disease is a general state of the personality and the suffering of the whole organism, characterized by the simultaneous violation of physical, mental, social and spiritual health and closely associated with internal, interpersonal and semantic conflicts. Many geniuses had diverse physical abnormalities, had a fragile physique and lowered physical activity: Aristotle, Giotto, Demosthenes, Erasmus Rotterdam, Kant, Kafka, Proust.
According to V.P. Efroimson (1991), in genius people hereditary diseases are much more common, which in a certain way stimulate creative activity. In this case, the scientist identifies 5 factors or "stigma" genius.
1. Tendency to padagre. Hereditarily fixed level of uric acid in the blood, which acts as a biological stimulant, an internal doping of creative activity, as it is similar in structure and nature to caffeine and theobromine. At the same time, the accumulation in the tissues of uric acid crystals leads to gout, which suffered A. Macedonian, Columbus , Peter I, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Beethoven, Turgenev, Stendhal, Maupassant, Bacon, Montaigne, Galileo, Newton, Darwin and many others.
2. Morphine syndrome or disproportionate gigantism, which is characterized by long thin limbs and large hands and feet. It is accompanied by an increased adrenaline rush, which stimulates high intellectual and physical activity. This syndrome was observed in A. Lincoln, G. H. Andersen, K. Chukovsky, Charles de Gaulle, N. Tesla.
3. Morris syndrome, which is accompanied by a high content of sex hormones - androgens. Representatives of this type are distinguished by vigor, willpower, intelligence, purposefulness, high intellectual, physical and sexual activity. Among the most famous carriers of these qualities are Caesar, Peter I, Byron, Pushkin, Balzac, Maupassant, Heine, Goethe, as well as Jeanne D'Arc and George Sand.
4. Manic-depressive psychosis or cyclothymia, manifested by alternation of unusually productive stages and periods of deep depression, was observed, in the opinion of the scientist, in Z. Freud, Van Gogh, Goethe, L. Tolstoy, C. Dickkens, Schumann,. Hemingway and N. Gogol.
5. High agility. The giant, high forehead is an external manifestation of the unusually developed frontal lobes of the brain, which play a leading role in intellectual processes. The highbrods include Beethoven, Liszt, Napoleon, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Goethe, Montaigne and many others.
2. Mental illness. In the scientific and popular literature there are a huge number, usually uncritically rewritten, and sometimes deliberately distorted examples and descriptions of mental illnesses of geniuses and celebrities. All these evidences should be viewed through the prism of the following important notes describing the main factors and features of the development of the pathological theory of genius:
1. Misunderstanding of the complexity, semantic depth and "fullness of the future" of the inner world of geniuses, the multidimensionality of their life and work, their consideration from the point of view of "common sense", ordinary consciousness and the current state of knowledge. So the geniuses distinguished by extraordinary insights were ranked and insane: Roger Bacon, for his descriptions of ships without rowers, chariots without horses, submarines and aircraft, J. Bruno, for his ideas that the Earth is just a small planet among many other planets, the existence of unknown planets, that the stars are distant suns, and also O. Comte for his assumptions that the time will come when the fertilization of a woman will occur without the participation of a man.
2. The lack of a generally accepted definition and understanding of the mental and personal norms. So C. Lambroso saw pathology in any deviation from the actual, accepted group of specialists, and sometimes by the norm itself. He saw signs of mental illness of a genius in his late and late development, in his love of travel (Tasso, Cellini, Po), in his dissimilarity to his parents, in possessing a special passionate, trembling, colorful style, in giving special importance to his dreams, in gray hair and balding , in the thinness of the body and even left-handedness, although the left-handers were Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Michelangelo, Raphael, partly Leonardo, Einstein, Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, Chaplin, Paul McCartney, and many American presidents - Ford, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama. Lambroso called Socrates crazy only because he was guided in his actions by his inner voice (imaginary daimon) and attributed to mental disorders melancholia, which in his opinion “suffered” by Aristotle, Mendelssohn and Moliere. Some researchers also referred to pathology as vegetarianism, meditation, the use of a variety of creative methods to stimulate creativity: Zola wrote novels, tying himself to the table, Milton, Rossini, Leibniz, Kant and Descartes worked in bed, Baumgarten during riding, and Gemholtz during his ascent into the mountains, Schiller was inspired by the smell of rotten apples lying in the table, and Proust smelled strong spirits, Beethoven poured ice water on his head, and Shelley and Rousseau exposed their heads to the sun’s rays, Proust wrote in a room with robkovymi walls, Gogol in noisy restaurants, Bernard Shaw in the markets and in commuter trains, Reni and Musset worked only dressed in fine clothes, and G. Marquez wearing overalls.
3. Tendentious attribution to the traits and manifestations of the genius of a pathological nature, the tension of interpretations, the adjustment and attachment of facts, their consideration from the point of view of a pre-selected theory, the manifestation of the so-called “Midas effect”, manifested in the transformation into the pathology of everything unusual, everything that would not have touched the attention of the researcher. So Lombroso diagnoses epilepsy in Dante only on the basis of his poems: “And a terrible vortex rose. And the lightning flashed when I fell, unconscious and then fell asleep ”(Song 3, 129–136). V. Hirsch makes fun of the authors of the pathological theory: "All the works of Wagner do not like Nordau, therefore - Wagner is a madman."
4. The poverty and limitedness of the terminological apparatus of genius researchers, who, in the absence of concepts that adequately reflect the complexity and multidimensionality of the inner world of geniuses, readily use psychiatric terminology. So absolutely all people of asthenic physique E. Krechmer easily enrolls in schizotymic.
5. The desire of some authors and ordinary people to belittle history and geniuses, their desire to assert itself by searching celebrities and geniuses for weaknesses, shortcomings, illnesses and low passions. A.S. Pushkin wrote in one of his letters: “Gossip will be telling about me - it’s as low as we are, just as mean and disgusting. You are lying, channels! Yes, mean and low, but not like you, but differently ".
All variety of mental deviations can be represented as follows:
Table 6 Types of mental disorders
Personality component | Constitution and type of temperament (E. Krechmer) |
Accentuation (C. Leongard) |
Pskhopatiya (P. Ganushkin) |
Neurosis | Psychosis |
Axiological | Dysplastic | Stuck | Paranoid | Depression | Paranoia |
Cognitive | Leptosomatic (Asthenic) Schizotimic |
Pedantic | Schizoid Psychasthenic |
Obsessive states Phobias Ipohonria |
Schizophrenia |
Affective | Picnic Cyclothymic |
Demonstrative | Hysterical Affective |
Hysteria (dissociative neurosis) |
Manic depressive (Bipolar affective disorder, BAR) |
Behavioral | Athletic Ixotimist (viscous) |
Excitable | Excitable | Neurasthenia | Epilepsy |
2.1. Accentuations or psychopathies, understood as the dominance of individual structural components of character, as a peculiar pattern of the most pronounced personality traits, characterize a genius primarily in terms of originality, originality and uniqueness of his creative individuality.
One of the first studies of the relationship between the individual psychological properties of the personality and the characteristics of their pathological and creative manifestations was conducted by E. Krechmer in his work Body Structure and Character (1921). Based on an analysis of the links between constitutional features of poets, artists, scholars, leaders, heroes and their literary portraits, biographical notes and works, he identified two large groups of temperaments: schizotymic and cyclothymic, each of which was distinguished by specific mental disorders and corresponding features of creativity.
1. Schizotimy (asteniki). The main group of schizotymic poetic temperaments are Schiller, Kerner, Uland, Tasso, Holderlin, Novalis, Platen. They are all slender, thin, thin and have beautiful angular profiles. “This is mainly,” writes E. Krechmer, “a group of pathetiks, romantics, artists of form and style with a general tendency toward idealism in form and content ... Heroic and idyllic are schizotymic moods that complement each other.” Shizotimikov distinguishes impracticality and cabinet learning, propensity to theorize and taxonomy (Kant Gegel, Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Lejbnits, Newton, Faraday), the tendency to classical beautiful forms (Feuerbach) extreme enthusiasm (Michelangelo, Grunewald) heroic-fanatical features (Fichte, Schelling, Schiller) and high-stressed moral idealism, despotism, fanaticism and cold calculation (Savonarola, Calvin, Robespierre). At the same time, according to E Krechmer, some representatives of the schizotymic type had different degrees of severity of mental deviations from schizoid psychopathy to schizophrenic psychosis.
2. Cyclothymics (picnics). This group of outstanding people is represented by M. Luther, V. Humboldt, I.V. Goethe, G. Keller, F. Reiter, G. Kurtz, G. Seidel, L. Blucher. All of them had a typical pyknic structure of the body, and psychiatrically, some of them were prone to typical manic attacks, periodic mood disorders with dipsomanic and manic-depressive coloration. At the same time, they were distinguished by flexibility, liveliness, mobility, the ability to live life to the fullest. Cyclothimic poets were realists and humorists, scholars were distinguished by a tendency toward empirical research, and the leaders were bold fighters and skilled organisers.
As for the third - Ixotomic (athletic) type of temperament, it was noted that it is in many ways similar to the schizotymic type. They are united by perseverance, stubbornness and rigidity. However, Ixotimists are calmer, more practical, less sensitive and with the development of mental disorders prone to epilepsy.
The theory of character accentuations and their connection with creative manifestations of personality was developed by K. Leonhard, who argued that accentuated personalities potentially have both opportunities for socially positive achievements and a socially negative charge. Depending on the individual psychological characteristics of a creative personality, various mental deviations can accentuate and reinforce any features, properties, and abilities, thereby activating creative self-expression and giving it a unique originality:
1. The stuck (paranoid) accentuation ( Michelangelo, J. Savonarola, A. Schopenhauer) enhances such personality traits of a genius as obsession, passion, perseverance, ambition, pride, self-reliance, a tendency to dominate, unswervingly follow supervaluable ideas.
2. Pedantic (psychasthenic) accentuation (J. Calvin, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, I. Kant, M. Proust, J. J. Rousseau, F. Chateaubriand, F. Chopin, R. Descartes, D. Vico, A Bergson, N. Berdyaev, A. Toynbee, T. Mann, C. Darwin, F. Kafka, A. Chekhov) aggravates susceptibility, vulnerability, sensitivity to various influences of the sociocultural environment, leads to self-deepened reflection and enrichment of the inner world, good faith, striving for thoroughness, clarity, completeness, and also engenders an excessive striving for theorizing, ordering analysis.
3. Demonstrative (affective) accentuation (J. Sand, I. Severyanin, K. Balmont, S. Dali) leads to the intensification of imagination and fantasy, gives rise to artistry, eccentricity and extravagance, thirst for recognition and fame.
4. Excitable (epileptoidic) accentuation (Napoleon, JB Moliere, F. Dostoevsky, Agatha Christie) - can increase the intensity of passions, tension, concentration and brightness of experiences, cause a tendency to exaltation, hallucational visions, to special states of consciousness and somnambulism when a person creates, submitting to a powerful external force, being on the thin line between consciousness and the unconscious.
2.2. Neuroses are functional, causing disturbances of the emotional sphere, psychogenic disorders, in which there is full clarity of consciousness and a critical assessment of their condition.
The main psychogenic factors that lead to the emergence of neurosis in geniuses are a variety of external or internal conflicts associated with their specific way of life and activity, mental trauma and prolonged overstrain of the emotional and intellectual spheres of the psyche caused by long and selfless work on the works.
1. Depression is accompanied by the experience of feelings of despair and hopelessness and often arises among brilliant personalities who have such qualities as sticking, uncompromising, sharpened sense of duty and justice. Many geniuses experienced creative depression, among whom I.V. Goethe , N. Gogol, A. Matisse, E. Hemingway, M. Eminescu, Akutagawa Ryunoske.
2. Neurosis of obsessive -compulsive disorder (Obsessive-compulsive disorder) is a disease caused by mental trauma and overstrain, in which obsessive thoughts involuntarily arise, unmotivated fears and movements that are perceived by patients as painful, with which they struggle, but cannot get rid of them.
a) Rituals. This neurosis is accompanied by the execution of repeated meaningless mental acts or actions that a person has to perform in order to reduce anxiety and, in his opinion, to prevent any undesirable event. Nikolo Tesla always walked around the laboratory building three times, before entering it and settling in a hotel, he demanded a room for himself, which number was a multiple of three. Various kinds of obsessions were inherent in G. Hegel, G. Maler and M. Ravel.
b ) Phobias manifest themselves as strongly pronounced, obsessive fears that are beyond control and logical explanation. Blaise Pascal, after his carriage almost fell off the bridge, was tormented by the fear of the abyss, which, according to his feelings, was constantly ready to open up behind his left shoulder. Louis Pasteur, who discovered the microbes, touched the doorknob only through a handkerchief. После пережитой эпидемии холеры, Николо Тесла боялся прикоснуться к любому пыльному предмету он постоянно мыл руки, а в номер требовал ежедневно 18 полотенец. Мизофобией (гермофобия), боязнью микробов, страдали так же Говард Хьюз, Майкл Джексон, Дональд Трамп и Камерон Диас. Николо Тесла также избегал всего круглого, а Альфред Хичкок боялся овальных предметов. Сальвадор Дали панически боялся кузнечиков, а Вуди Аллен всех насекомых. Анна Ахматова боялась открытых, Мишель Пфайфер замкнутых пространств, а Джонни Деппа преследовала коулрофобия – боязнь клоунов.
в) Ипохондрия. Типичным ипохондриком был Ганс Христиан Андерсен, который не переставал жаловаться на плохое здоровье. Ж.Ж. Руссо, прочитав о какой-то болезни, тут же обнаруживал ее у себя, а В. Маяковский всю свою жизнь панически боялся заболеть, заразиться и порезаться. Он носил с собой мыльницу и йод, а когда заболевал, без конца мерил температуру. Ипохондрические симптомы наблюдались у А. Пушкина, С. Рахманинова, А. Дюрера, И. Бунина и О. Бальзака.
3. Истерический (современное название – диссоциативный) невроз, проявляется демонстративными, яркими, театральными и чрезмерно выразительными эмоциональными реакциями, а также тягостными переживаниями, которые трансформируются в функциональные соматические, неврологические и психические расстройства. Нарушения чувтвительности, яркие галлюцинации, развитая способность к самовнушению и богатая фантазия могут приводить к созданию своих собственных, своеобразных и причудливых миров, построенным по ярко выраженным субъективным критериям и по законам индивидуальной логики.
Чрезвычайная яркость представлений об окружающем мире, богатая эмоциональная окраска переживаний, склонность к самовнушению наблюдались у А. Скрябина, музыка которого отличалась нервностью, импульсивностью. Г. Берлиоз писал о себе: "При звуках некоторых музыкальных произведений мне кажется, что душа моя расширяется; я испытываю неземное блаженство… а далее наступает болезненное сокращение мускулов, дрожь во всех членах, полное онемение рук и ног, я ничего не вижу, плохо слышу... Головокружение... отчасти потеря сознания". Различные симптомы данного невроза проявлялись у Оноре де Бальзака, Всеволода Мейерхольда и Мэрилин Монро.
4. Неврастения (дословно - "нервная слабость") представляет собой состояние, характеризующееся сочетанием повышенной возбудимости и раздражительной слабости и сопровождающееся быстрой утомляемостью и истощаемостью. Неврастения у гениев вызывается переутомлением, непосильными нагрузками, возможными конфликтными отношениями с окружающими, не понимающими их одержимости и не признающими результаты их труда. При этом постоянные стрессовые воздействия, по мере накопления часто приводили их к нервному срыву. Данное состояние, в определенные периоды своей жизни, испытывали Ганс Христиан Андерсон, Карл Маркс, В. Бехтерев и М. Зощенко.
2.3. Психозы характеризуются частичной потерей связи с объективной реальностью, погружением в мир собственных фантазий и сопровождаются острыми переживаниями и страданиями. Винсенту Ван Гогу в общей сложности было поставлено свыше 150 психиатрических диагнозов, в том числе и приписано три вида психозов: шизофрению, маниакально-депрессивный психоз и эпилепсию. Это не помешало ему завоевать славу одного из самых выдающихся, самобытных и великих художников в истории.
1. Паранойя проявляется у гениальных людей в виде создания ими своих собственных причудливых миров, которые отличаются системностью, логичностью, сложностью содержания и организуются вокруг сверхценных идей совершения революционных научных открытий, создания шедевров в области искусства и осознания своей особой миссии преобразования общества. Для гениев параноидального типа характерны не столько наличие болезненной подозрительности, сутяжничества и мании преследования, сколько трансформация этих симптомов в идеи величия и убежденности в своем особом, высоком предназначении. Они представляют себя центром мира, ревностно отстаивают свою свободу и отличаются непоколебимой уверенностью в своей правоте и страстным, безудержным стремлением к своей цели. Как раз здесь и высвечивается тончайшая грань между гениальностью и болезнью и еще раз подтверждается сущностный критерий гения состоящий в высокой ценности результатов его труда, в создании шедевров и совершении открытий на ход прогрессивного развития человечества. К данному типу великих людей относят Эмпедокла, Ю. Стриндберга, Э.Паунда, К. Малевича и П. Пикассо.
2. Schizophrenia is characterized by splitting, disorganization, loss of integrity and harmony of the inner world of a person, the formation within him of separate autonomous fragments, including fictional, but subjectively real, independent subjects and “votes”. At the same time, the personality is built up, fenced off from the objective world, a unique individual reality, with its own laws and values.
The violation of the criticality and the dominance of their own assessment criteria leads to a blurring of the boundaries between the conscious and the unconscious, to the imposition and intermingling of real life and dreams. This mental disorder is characterized by a deepening of reflection, auditory hallucinations, extraordinary creative productivity and a change in the perception of reality. In this sense, we can talk about the formation of a unique way of perceiving the surrounding reality, a special vision of the world, consisting in endowing things and events with its unusual, often tragic meanings, in considering them from its own, non-standard point of view.
The extraordinary, mysterious productivity of creative individuals who display symptoms of schizophrenia, gives reason to consider it not as a disease, but as a special form of personality (K. Jaspers) or as a special mode of functioning of the psyche and brain (B. O'Brien). At present, the predisposition to schizophrenia and the disease itself are not viewed from the position of inferiority, but in the context of the adaptive nature of all body reactions, which makes it possible to understand it as a result of the natural evolutionary changes of the species leading to the expansion of its adaptive capabilities (I.V.Davydovsky, D. F.Horrobin, I. Ya. Lagun).
Full immersion in the creative process and the world of his characters, the intense search for truth, the right word and accurate ways of expression, lead the creator to a state in which reality is revealed by its most bizarre and unexpected sides, in which it can experience voice hallucinations, experience the domineering action of external forces So, the schizophrenic symptom of the influence, formed in the inner world, of independent subjects, to some extent, resembles the “riot of heroes” described by K. Paustovsky, which, in the process e writing a work of art, cease to obey the will of the author and begin to act according to their own logic.
The liberation of the forces of the subconscious, the destruction of all social barriers and the removal of professional stereotypes, the splitting and mixing of objects of reality leads to the formation of fresh, bizarre connections, the generation of non-standard associations and the generation of novelty. What a creative person does consciously, using various methods and techniques, a person with certain schizophrenic symptoms accomplishes freely and naturally, under the influence of impersonal unfolding intrapersonal structures.
So, in literary work, this non-standard characterizes itself in comparison, of incompatible concepts, in a peculiar interpretation of events, in an unjustified accentuation on minor details, in unexpected paradoxical conclusions. In fine art - in the tendency to detachment from ordinary reality, to the disruption of customary connections, the disintegration of the depicted objects into their constituent elements, to the autonomization of objects, to the depiction of abstract concepts and entities (V.Milyavsky).
In modern literature, there are descriptions of entire constellations of prominent cultural figures who, in their life and work, displayed various schizophrenic symptoms and syndromes:
Ministers of the Spirit and Philosophers: Georg Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Fourier, Rene Descartes, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Scientists: Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Herbert Spencer, James Cardano, James Warrington, John Nash.
Writers and poets: Nikolai Gogol, Konstantin Batyushkov, Ferenc Kafka, Johan August Strindberg, Johann Gelderlin, Rainer Rilke, Alexander Dumas son, Veniamin Khlebnikov, Vsevolod Garshin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Ernest Hemingway.
Musicians: Robert Schumann, Alexander Scriabin, Sergey Rachmaninov.
Artists: Albrecht Durer, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Wassily Kandinsky, Mikhail Vrubel, Pavel Filonov, Mikaloyus Churlenis.
Dancers: Vaclav Nijinsky.
Many, absolutely healthy creative individuals, in the course of their life and creativity, from time to time, may experience smoothed, controlled schizophrenic symptoms. Consideration of this mental disorder from an evolutionary and cultural-historical point of view allows us to conclude that schizophrenia can be understood as a disease from a clinical, borderline state from a social and a norm, from a cultural point of view.
3. Manic-depressive psychosis (modern politically correct name “bipolar affective disorder” BAR) is a mental disorder, manifested in the form of manic and depressive affective states that alternate. This mental disorder is considered a disease of geniuses, since a whole galaxy of the greatest creators in all spheres of culture was exposed to it. In geniuses suffering from this disorder, states of creative uplift, euphoria, and periods of extremely productive activity were replaced by states of stagnation, emptiness, idleness, irritability, or longing and despondency. The manic phase is characterized by the acceleration of the thought stream, the ease and originality of associations, the activation of generation and even the “leap of ideas”. At the same time, there is increased productivity, reduced need for sleep, experiencing a state of elation and impatience, as well as a desire for great deeds, accomplishments and readiness to perform the most ambitious tasks. The depression following this state is manifested in the experience of unmotivated melancholy, apathy and total indifference.
Such successive states, even without suspecting that they are called a disease, from time to time, experienced the geniuses of all areas of culture:
Servants of the spirit and philosophers: Martin Luther, Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet), Imanuel Kant, Henri Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte.
Scientists: Ludwig Boltzmann, Karl Linney, Nikola Tesla, Rudolf Diesel, Siegund Freud, Paul Ehrenfest.
Writers and poets: Lope de Vega, Torquato Tasso, Johann Goethe, Robert Burns sons, Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, Edgar Allan Poe, George Byron, Charles Dickens, John Reskin, Jack London, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Alexander Dumas-Saint-Louis, Jack Reskin, Jack London, Virginia Woolf Sergey Yesenin, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Guy de Maupassant.
Actors: Vivien Leigh, Marilyn Monroe.
Musicians: Wolfgang Mozart, Robert Schumann, Edith Piaf.
Artists: Vincent Van Gogh , Isaac Levitan, Edvard Munch.
Statesmen: Napoleon Bonaparte, Gebhard Blucher, George Patton, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill.
Modern celebrities such as Shinead O'Connor, Russell Brand, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mel Gibson, Linda Hamilton, Eminem, Britney Spears, Sting, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kurt Cobain, Ozzy Osborne, Axel Rose and Trent Reznor
Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 28, conducted an exhaustive analysis of the interaction between illness and creativity, including on the basis of her own experience in dealing with the disease. In her work “God's spark” (1993), she notes that creative individuals with this disorder are distinguished by increased vigor, uniqueness, heightened sexuality, risk appetite, self-confidence, and high productivity - which were associated with growing prosperity and achievements.
Geniuses and celebrities experiencing this disorder, argue that it should be carefully regulated without oppressing creativity and that you should avoid the use of drugs that inhibit productivity and prevent free creative self-realization.
4. Epilepsy is a mental disorder characterized by recurring paroxysmal disorders of consciousness or mood. Epileptic seizures or episodes are not only motor, but also psychosensory, associated with shallow stupefactions, with the appearance of hallucinations, often fantastic and mystical, with a sense of derealization, with impaired perception of form, size, number of objects and own parts of the body, as well as accompanied by mood swings, somnambulism and trance. At the same time, the phenomena of depersonalization, derealization (with a distortion of ideas about space and time), feelings of increasing or decreasing the size of one’s own body or its parts, visual illusions, pseudohallucinations are called the syndrome “Alice in Wonderland” (V.M.Bleicher),
manifestations of which were described in the book of the same name by L. Carroll. According to G.V. Segalina's constant tension and fear of losing her “body” or the same fear of losing consciousness, the constant variability of this consciousness, experienced as “stopping life”, psychic “failures”, ecstatic and aural experiences - all this develops acute attention and to the real and, equally, to the unreal, to the physical and to the metaphysical. At the same time, an epileptoid has the ability to see objects, natural phenomena, people, their mental processes through the prism of a hyper-medical exacerbation, the ability to “see” everything in an unusually bright, emphatic and penetrating manner.
Many creative personalities noted the similarity of epileptic seizures with a state of inspiration, manifested in a sense of a higher power that was outside the personality, in the appearance of quick and unforeseen associations and ideas, of original imagination and sensitivity beyond normal (Morot de Tours, Mikhail Arnaudov).
An epileptic seizure is often preceded by a state of aura (from the ancient Greek αὔρα, Latin aura — a breath, a breeze, a spirit), which was ingeniously described by F. Dostoevsky: “The feeling of life and self-consciousness almost doubled in those moments that continued like lightning. The mind, the heart, was lit up with an extraordinary light; all excitements, all his doubts, all anxieties, as it were, were pacified at once, resolved into some kind of calm, full of clear harmonious joy and hope, full of reason and the final cause. But these moments, these glimpses were still only a premonition of that final second (never more than a second), from which the very fit began. This second was, of course, unbearable.
“What is the fact that this is a disease,” says F. Dostoevsky, through the mouth of his hero, “if the very result, if the minute of sensation, recalled and considered already in a healthy state, turns out to be in the highest degree harmony, beauty, it gives an unheard of and not anticipated sense of fullness, measure, reconciliation and anxious, prayer merging with the highest synthesis of life? "
Life knows, - wrote P.I. Karpov, that epileptics are often reformers in a particular area of human knowledge. Epileptics enrich science, art and technology with new values, enrich life with new ideals, new aspirations
According to various sources, epileptics, but rather geniuses who have ever manifested certain epiliptic symptoms or syndromes, include:
Ministers of the spirit and philosophers: Buddha, Aristotle, sv. Pavel, Socrates, Mohammed, Nostardamus.
Scientists: Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Alfred Nobel.
Writers and poets: Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Gustave Flaubert, Alfred Tennyson, Byron, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jean-Baptiste Moliere, Edgar Allan Poe, Stendhal (Henri Marie Beyle), Edward Lear, Alexander Blok, Lewis Carroll, Agatha Christie .
Musicians: Niccolò Paganini, Georg Friedrich Handel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Neil Young.
Artists: Vincent Van Gogh.
Warlords: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon Bonaparte, Peter the Great, Richelieu, Charles V, Jeanne d'Arc.
From the books of Lambroso, long lists of geniuses "suffering from epilepsy" are repeatedly copied and uncritically supplemented. At the same time, the very principle and method of attributing geniuses to epilectics was tendentious and very hypothetical. Often, the conclusion of the presence of epilepsy in a genius by Lambroso was made on the basis of the confessions of great people who, with a certain amount of artistic fiction and exaggeration, described their experiences in a state of inspiration. So, as evidence of the presence of signs of epilepsy in Goncours and Buffon, is their recognition that, in a state of inspiration, they felt the action of an unknown, powerful, imperious force, which hit them like a shock and made them obedient performers.
Experts note the amazing accuracy of the description of the seizures of their characters F. Dostoevsky, C. Dickens, L. Carroll, who, apparently, themselves experienced these borderline experiences.
Probably in the overwhelming majority of cases we are talking about individual symptoms or manifestations of excitable accentuation, which serves as a powerful source of vital, saturated with creativity and higher values, energy. A deeper and respectful acquaintance with the pathological theory of genius suggests that geniuses lived their own intense, dramatic, and happy creative life, not suspecting that it would be once described using medical terminology. Their life and work inspire appreciation, keen and warm human sympathy, as well as inspiring admiration for their asceticism, power and glory.
In addition, a number of independent syndromes that are most closely associated with the creative manifestations of prominent personalities can be identified:
1. Narcissism is a personality disorder characterized by excessive narcissism, conviction in one's own importance and uniqueness, belief in one's superiority over other people, an exaggerated opinion of one's talents and achievements; absorption fantasies about their successes. Healthy narcissism manifests itself in the presence of realistic high goals, a rich inner life, personal maturity, self-sufficiency and self-orientation, independence, self-affirmation, the need for domination and dominance. So infinite pride was Gustave Courbet, who loved to portray himself in his paintings, Igor Severyanin, whose poetry was distinguished by self-admiration and self-appreciation, as well as Salvador Dali.
2. Autism is a mental disorder characterized by avoiding contact with reality, disruption of social interactions, poverty of expression of emotions, phenomenal memory and selectivity of types of activity in fields of activity in which it is possible to achieve outstanding results. In this form of the disease, the intellect does not suffer, but there is a significant decline in social abilities. This kind of mental and social deviation was experienced by such brilliant personalities as Mozart, Kant, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Mendeleev, Carnot, Boltzmann, Planck, Ehrenfest, Schrödinger).
3. Savanta syndrome (savantism, from French savant - “scientist”) is one of the extreme forms of autism, in which persons with disabilities in personal and social development show the phenomenon “Islands of genius”, that is, the presence of outstanding abilities in one or several spheres of activity. This phenomenon is explained by the hypertrophied development of some parts of the right hemisphere of the brain responsible for the manifestation of intuition, feelings and holistic perception. According to A. Snyder and D. Mitchell, the reason for savantism is a special way of perception of reality, in which there are no processes of categorization, generalization and compression of primary information. If an ordinary person has an instantaneous, automatic transition from many details to unambiguous abstract concepts, then Savants are plunged into an avalanche of primary virgin information, they perceive the world as it is, in all the richness and uniqueness of its important details, remarkable details, without undue censorship and editing. and subtleties. They respond to the information directly received completely clearly and unconsciously, instinctively, intuitively and accurately. They are distinguished by phenomenal memory and extraordinary abilities to count. Savants are fluent in dozens of languages, including those invented by themselves, remember by heart the contents of several thousand books, including reference books, are able to multiply ten-digit numbers in their minds, extract the 13th root of a number containing 500 numbers, producing the result like this as if they knew him beforehand. Mathematicians Karl Gauss, Andre Ampère had phenomenal abilities to score, and musicians D. Paravicini, L. Lemke, M. Savage, T. DeBlois, T. Mendoza, as well as artists and sculptors R. Vouro, A. Clemens , G. Seth F, D. Lerman, S. Wiltshire.
4. Sociopathy- представляет собой разновидность расстройства личности, основанное на неспособности или нежелании к социальной адаптации, на неумении формировать и поддерживать межличностные отношения, проявлять чувства привязанности, сопереживания и отзывчивости. Ч. Ломброзо характеризовал гениев как людей одино¬ких, холодных, равнодушных к семейным и общественным обязан¬ностям людей. Необходимо отметить, что творческие личности, подверженные этому отклонению ведут себя скорее как латентные социопаты, которые не отрицают социальных норм и ценностей общества, не проявляют агрессии или других асоциальных форм поведения, но сознательно дистанцируются от общества с целью получения возможностей и времени для реализации своих творческих планов. Сознательное дистанцирование от общества и мира, ведет к преодолению ситуативности и обыденности, пленненности необхлодмостью и мирами. Так же как сенсорная депривация рождает галлюцинации, так и одиночество пробуждает и усиляет творческое воображение. Так Микеланджело –гениальный и суровый художник одиночка, который чувствовал себя в обществе чужим и неустроенным, всю свою жизнь мужественно боролся за свою независимость и право творить. «Искусство ревниво, – говорил он, – и требует всего человека». «Я имею супругу, которой весь принадлежу, и мои дети – это мои произведения». Эту фразу впоследствии повторяли многие великие люди. Так потерпев неудачу в семейной жизни, Карл Брюллов написал в одном из своих писем "Моя жена – художества". К гениальным холостякам относятся, внесших огромный вклад развитие культуры, но не добившихся успехов в социальной и личной жизни, относятся:философы - Гераклит, Пифагор, Платон, Демосфен, Декарт, Лейбниц, Спиноза, Вольтер, Кант, Конт, Шопенгауэр, Ницше, Сковорода, Сартр; ученые - Галилей, Коперник, А. Гумбольдт, Ньютон, Лейбниц писатели - Геродот, Вергилий, Гораций, Петрарка, Тассо, Данте, Сервантес, Руссо, Гоголь, Лермонтов, Шевченко, Тургенев, (Антон Чехов и Бернард Шоу женились после сорока лет); художники - Леонардо, Микеланджело, Рафаэль, Боттичелли, Караваджо ; музыканты - Бетховен, Шуберт, Брамс, Шопен.
Теория преображающего страдания , являющася самостоятельной обобщающей объяснительной моделью, утверждает, что страдание является мощным источником и побудительным механизмом творчества гения.
Многих великих людей отличало необыкновенно пронзительное чувство трагизма существования. Страдания, выпавшие на их долю, не сламывали их, но, напротив, позволяли очиститься духовно, отречься от власти обыденности и одномерности, открыть новые глубинные творческие смыслы. Гегель писал: «Страдание составляет привилегию высших натур... Великий человек имеет великие потребности и стремится удовлетворить их. Вели¬кие деяния проистекают только из глубокого страдания души». Страдание – это условие деятельности гения, – утверждал А. Шопенгауэр, страдания рождают красоту, считал Ван Гог, а А. Стриндберг писал, что в момент жизненных кризисов душа привлекает могучие, запредельные силы. Гений – это способность к страданию, к величавому страданию, - считал Ибсен. “…искусству скальда не учатся, - говорит он устами своего героя. - Я получил дар к страданию и стал певцом.”
При этом экзистенциальное страдание может сопровождаться муками творчества, вызванных принципиальными трудностями полного и точного самовыражения и невозможностью достижения вечно ускользающего совершенства. “Страдание, мука, пытка – вот что такое творчество. Замысел, создание – в этих двух словах заключен для писателя целый мир мучительных усилий, тоски, отчаяния», - писали братья Гонкур. «Я же и вообще то работаю нервно, с мукой и заботой, – говорил Ф. Достоевский.- Когда я успешно работаю, то я болен даже физически…». “Боже мой, хоть бы кто-нибудь вместо меня завершил “Анну Каренину!” Невыносимо противно”, - восклицал Л.Н. Толстой
В то же время не сами страдания порождают творчество, но успокоенные, отрефлексированные и усмиренные страдания. Гений творчески использует свои страдания, искусно трансформируя их отрицательную энергию в энергию создания. Бальзак от имени героя «Шагреневой кожи» говорил, что он свои муки и страдания превращает в мечты, высказывает, изображает и не позволяет им овладеть собою. Величие духа гения, овладевшая им сверхзадача и категорический императив творчества позволяют сплавить в единый поток все виды и модальности переживаний, усмирить хаос внутреннего мира и символического мира.
3.3.2. Теория сублимации утверждает, что причиной гениальности является трансформация сверхсильных влечений к славе, власти, богатству в образы творческой фантазии, а также перелив сексуальной энергии в сферу науки и искусства, превращение ее в культурно-значимую и социально-одобряемую продуктивную деятельность.
По мнению сторонников данной теории, основоположником которой выступал 3. Фрейд, причиною необыкновенной творческой активности гениев было переключение, перелив сексуальной энергии в символический мир искусства или науки, ее трансформация и возвышение в конструктивную и созидающую силу.
При этом, согласно данной концепции, многие творцы испытывали те или иные отклонения в сексуальной сфере, а иногда и сознательно ограничивали и подавляли в себе побудительную силу libido.
"Сексуальное влечение, -писал З. Фрейд,- обеспечивает культурный труд огромной массой энергии; это происходит в силу присущей ему способности изменять свою цель, не ослабляя напора. Эта способность менять первоначальную сексуальную цель на иную, несексуальную, но психологически ей близкую, называется сублимацией".
В то же время сам З. Фрейд не ограничивал понятие сублимации исключительно сексуальными мотивами. Так он писал о Леонардо да Винчи «… он превратил свои страсти в одну страсть к исследованию; он предавался исследованию с той усидчивостью, постоянством, углубленностью, которые могут исходить только из страсти». Кроме этого описывая механизмы творчества художника, З. Фрейд отмечал: «В нем теснятся сверхсильные влечения, он хотел бы получать почести, власть, богатство, славу и любовь женщин; но у него нет средств, чтобы добиться их удовлетворения. А потому, как всякий неудовлетворенный человек, он отворачивается от действительности и переносит весь свой интерес, а также свое либидо на желанные образы своей фантазии..."
Сублимация, как объяснительный принцип гениальности, подчиняется одному обязательному условию – она проявляется не просто как фантазирование, а как объективизация желаний и замыслов с помощью различных символических систем, как создание выдающихся шедевров. «Большие художественные произведения возникают тогда, если художнику удается выдержать большое внутреннее напряжение и перевести его на символический язык творчества» - писал Г.Крафт.
Одновременно сублимация понимается, как преобразование в продуктивную и социально-значимую деятельность различных травмирующих и негативных переживаний. Искусство, в данном случае, понимается как символическое удвоение действительности, как спонтанный перенос патологических влечений в поэтическое произведение. Энтони Сторр писал «Только неудовлетворенный человек фантазирует, счастливый же — никогда».
Ц.Ламброзо, В.Ланге-Эйхбаум приводят целые списки великих людей, обладавших различными сексуальными
продолжение следует...
Часть 1 Theories of transnormal genius
Часть 2 - Theories of transnormal genius
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Psychology of creativity and genius
Terms: Psychology of creativity and genius