Are schizotypal people more creative?
I was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder about 2 years ago. Yet, only yesterday did I discover a very important piece of information regarding schizotypal personalities. I was listening to an interview with a Danish novelist — also schizotypal — and she mentioned some study that found the following: people with schizotypy are better at solving problems using their imagination than others.
This was the first time I heard anything positive about schizotypal personality disorder. Nobody ever mentioned that this diagnosis might also have good implications — it was always a matter of “let’s look at how we can mitigate it” and “though you have this problem, it doesn’t mean that this is all you are, you are more than your sickness.” But never a word about how this sickness might also be a benefit.
Don’t get me wrong: this mental health condition is in large part negative. That’s definitely what it feels like, at least. When I have a hard time getting out of bed, or taking initiative, I’m certainly not thankful that I have it. Or when I sit at the airport and feel that people are looking at me, like that woman who’s surely talking about me to her friend, she doesn’t like the way I look, she thinks I’m weird, maybe she’s suspicious of me, and now I’m also looking at her angry. So no, I’m not here to argue that in fact this condition is nothing but a beautiful gift.
A little research
Nonetheless, I was very curious to find out more about any positive sides there might be to schizotypy after I heard about that study in that interview. Since the novelist didn’t mention any specifics, I turned to google and began to research. I found several studies that address this in some way and, although I didn’t understand everything I read, I did gather that yes, there is a link between schizotypal personality disorder (which is on the schizophrenia spectrum) and creativity.
Finally, I found an article in Scientific American that was a little more palpable than the other studies I stumbled upon, and that summarised many different studies that deal with this topic. The title of the article is The Unleashed Mind — it was written by Shelley Carson and published in 2014. It isn’t specifically about schizotypal personality disorder, but about schizotypal personality — which is a milder version of the former, according to Carson.
Schizotypal = more creative
The article begins by highlighting schizotypal traits that were exhibited by some well known creatives and scientist throughout history. Howard Hughes was paranoid. Charles Dickens thought he was being followed by characters from his novels. Schumann had magical thinking: he believed Beethoven channeled music to him from the grave. Newton, Tesla and Dickinson lived solitary lives, favouring work over socialising. Reading this, I must say, it suddenly felt much better to be diagnosed with schizotypal PD — not a bad group to be a part of.
One study mentioned by the article looked at 36 children who were adopted away from schizophrenic parents and 36 children who were adopted from normal parents. All children were tested for creativity and the ones with schizophrenic parents scored higher — more specifically, the ones who showed signs of a schizotypal personality. The researchers also found that some of the children of ‘normal’ parents also exhibited signs of schizotypal personality and they too scored higher on the creativity test.
“Taking the reverse approach, studies by British investigator Daniel Nettle and Australian researchers David Rawlings and Ann Locarnini have confirmed that creative individuals tend to score higher on scales of schizotypal personality than less creative individuals.”
Why is this?
The article explains this connection between schizotypal personality and creativity: it’s likely a result of something called cognitive disinhibition. There’s a certain cognitive filter in the brain called latent inhibition, which blocks unnecessary information from reaching conscious awareness in the brain. This filter has been shown to have reduced functioning in people with schizotypal personalities and schizophrenia, and is associated with “offbeat thoughts and hallucinations.”
Basically, more “unfiltered information” — including strange thoughts — are allowed to enter the conscious mind of the schizotypal person and this can lead to groundbreaking new ideas, solutions to problems and so on. According to Carson, the “aha!” moment seems to work in a similar way (in everybody, not just schizotypal personalities): cognitive filters relax for a moment and new thoughts — that would otherwise have been blocked out — are allowed to enter consciousness.
“Reduced cognitive filtering could explain the tendency of highly creative people to focus intensely on the content of their inner world at the expense of social or even self-care needs. (Beethoven, for example, had difficulty tending to his own cleanliness.) When conscious awareness is overpopulated with unusual and unfiltered stimuli, it is difficult not to focus attention on that inner universe.”
Intelligence helps
The article also touches upon the fact that it helps if the mind receiving these extra thoughts is an intelligent one — it can make better use of them. As Carson puts it: “the ability to use cognitive disinhibition in a creative way depends on the presence of additional cognitive abilities associated with a high level of functioning.”
She later adds that, through a series of studies, they’ve shown that people with lower cognitive inhibition (aka higher cognitive disinhibition) and higher IQ scored higher in creativity.
Don’t forget!
None of this is news of course, but it was news to me. The purpose of this blog post is thus to give a reminder to all of you out there suffering from schizotypy and schizophrenia: it’s not all negative! We gain a sort of power with this as well, and we should not forget that when we assess our situation in life. There is an actual silver lining here.
We can cultivate this power and we can use it for good — which is exactly what I’m trying to do with writing this blog post. So the next time you feel like you’re not good enough, like you can’t keep up with everyone else, like you’re weighed down by rocks that others don’t have to carry, remind yourself of this power and let it inspire you to action.
It doesn’t matter if your IQ isn’t the highest — if you’re reading this article, you’re likely at least somewhat intelligent. When your cognitive disinhibition kicks in, make use of it with this intelligence and exercise your creativity — whether you’re a teacher, an artist, a doctor, an engineer, a nurse, a writer, a scientist, a carpenter or whatever.
“Indeed, we all owe a deep debt of gratitude to those whose creative work has been accomplished at the expense of square-peg feelings of alienation and ostracism. The creative efforts of eccentrics add richness, beauty and innovation to the lives of those of us who have fit somewhat more comfortably into our round holes.”
PS: I asked my psychologist if she heard about this connection between schizotypal personalities and creativity: she had not heard about it, she said, but many of her schizotypal clients are writers and painters and just creative people in general, she told me, so it didn’t surprise her one bit.
To read Shelley Carson's article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unleashed-mind-creativity-special/
