This chapter explores three ’classic’ studies of creativity and mental illness. The first is Jamison whose focus is on the connection between bipolar disorder and creativity. The second is Andreasen, who used structured interviews to analyze 30 creative writers, 30 matched controls, and first-degree relatives of each group. The writers had a higher rate of mental illness, with a particular tendency toward bipolar and other affective disorders. The third major work is Ludwig, who utilized the historiometric technique. All three studies have come under serious criticism. Many of the studies of Big-C creators are historiometric, akin to Ludwig’s work. Some such studies claim that eminent creators show higher rates of mental illness. A much more common approach is to look at everyday people and give them measures of creativity and mental health. Typically, researchers look at what are called subclinical disorders—in other words, they’re not clinically significant.

Creativity and intelligence, like bacon and eggs, certainly seem like they should go together. But exactly how they do, or whether intelligence is part of creativity or creativity is part of intelligence, is still debated. At one point in time, a ‘threshold’ theory was popular, which argued that creativity and intelligence are positively related up until an IQ of approximately 120. Some studies have found that although creativity does predict GPA, other variables do it better or more directly, such as cognitive style, mental speed and short-term memory, or reasoning ability. An additional way of considering how creativity relates to intellectual abilities is to consider how creativity is connected to learning disabilities (LD). Another learning disability with a relationship to creativity is Williams syndrome. Healey and Rucklidge found that although 40” of a creative group showed symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), none met the level for actual diagnosis.

The aim of applied research on depressive disorders is to stimulate the development of treatments for these conditions and to evaluate their efficacy. The role of mental health care systems is to facilitate access to these treatments including interventions focused on ameliorating symptoms and preventive approaches intended to forestall their development. Intervention research focuses on testing which interventions are successful at treating various clinical problems in the population. For conditions such as depressive disorders, they are evaluated by the magnitude of change in symptoms and functioning measures among patients who receive the intervention, compared to patients who are exposed to some condition. Treatments for unipolar and bipolar depressive disorders take many forms including psychotherapies and biological interventions such as medicines and electroconvulsive therapy. Among the most studied and best validated psychotherapies for depressive disorders are those that use behavioral and cognitive techniques to target symptoms and maintaining factors in the depressive disorders.

This chapter examines the claims and evidence for a variety of treatments that fall under the umbrella term of “complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)” used to treat physical and mental health problems. Evidence-based treatments (EBTs), Non-EBTs, Poorly studied treatments (PSTs) are three types of treatments, each with varying levels of evidence for its use or nonuse. A placebo can refer to any type of sham or inactive medical treatment or procedure. Most susceptible to the placebo effect appear to be pain, depression, asthma, sleep problems, and irritable bowel syndrome. In addition to the placebo effect, a particularly frequent way that bias can creep into our decision making about health care is something called regression to the mean (RTM). In blinded studies, the trial participants are divided into two groups: active treatment and placebo control. Many CAM practitioner groups have successfully lobbied to obtain governmental licensure and regulation.

Research offers more support for humor’s impact on psychological well-being than on physical health. The area of humor and its effect on serious mental illness deserves further work. A chortle or two and a good sense of humor also seem to help emotional well-being in folks involved in psychotherapy, whether or not they might qualify for a diagnosis. Based on the assumption that humor can improve mental health, psychotherapists of nearly every ilk have recommended comedy. Some see it as a skill that therapists should develop or as a technique to use in therapy at certain times. A handful of therapists think of humor as a treatment itself. All agree that it’s a double-edged sword, warning that caustic humor has no place in the process of therapy. Appropriate humor seems as if it could enhance empathy, warmth, and genuineness. Affiliative humor, the kind that brings people together, certainly sounds apt.

The gifted have always been with us; it’s just science that entered late in the game. The grandest experiment occurred in the 16th century: Suleiman the Magnificent established a palace school for the education and upbringing of gifted youth. Even in modern times, giftedness in reference books is frequently defined as an “endowment”. A developmental framework proved to be an effective means of measuring accelerated development in gifted children. By studying the profoundly gifted, Hollingworth understood giftedness in a profoundly different manner. She documented their difficulties negotiating the social and educational world, their early philosophical interest in origins and destinies, their uneven development, their imaginary worlds, their need for meaning, and their loneliness. In order to serve the gifted population in a healthy manner, mental health workers need to guard against their own prejudice, the prejudice of the press, and the common misperceptions in society.

This chapter describes some research and theories dealing with prospective memory. Prospective memory is typically contrasted with retrospective memory memory for things in the past. The prospective memory is of two kinds they are time-based prospective memory (TBPM) and event-based prospective memory (EBPM). Rebekah Smith proposed a model that claims that focused attention is always needed to successfully use prospective memory. The theory is called the preparatory attention and memory (PAM) processes model. According to the theory, successful prospective memory retrieval can only happen when preparatory attention and memory processes are used. One of the more formal theories of prospective memory is called the multinomial model of prospective memory (MPT) model. The first key to improving our prospective memory is to create a strong mental association between the prospective memory cue and the intended action.