The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy

ISBN-13: 9780898628395 / Angielski / Twarda / 1995 / 310 str.

Arnold M. Ludwig

Opis

This book examines the lives and achievements of over 1,000 extraordinary men and women to address age-old questions about the relationship between mental illness and greatness. Filled with colorful anecdotes about many of the most eminent persons of our times, the book delves into many of mankind's greatest achievements, the special attributes of those who accomplished them, the unique circumstances of their lives, and the characteristics of their families. Written with a sophistication that will appeal to a professional audience and an accessible style that invites the general reader, this engaging volume reveals the factors that predict exceptional creative achievement.

Recenzje

"This is an excellent research report that should, once and for all, resolve senseless controversies about the correlation of creativity with psychopathology." - - The Review of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

"Engagingly anecdotal and well structured....The large sample and elegant analysis make this book an essential reference on the difficult, interesting task it addresses." - - Library Journal

Spis treści

1. A Touch of Madness?
2. Determining Greatness
3. The Early Years
4. The Adult Years
5. Impediments to Eminence
6. The Measurement of Achievement
7. Mental Illness within the Professions
8. Mental Symptoms and Creative Activity
9. Predicting "True" Greatness

O autorze

Arnold M. Ludwig is the E.A. Edwards Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. He is the former winner of the prestigious Hofheimer Prize Award given by the American Psychiatric Association for his research on alcoholism and LSD. He is the author of seven books and over 100 articles or book chapters, covering such topics as altered states of consciousness, schizophrenia, hysteria, cravings, disability, sensory overload, and the nature of the self. His investigations over the past ten years have focused on the relationship of mental illness to creative achievement, as well as the nature of greatness.