Creativity

Express your talents ! share your creations with us !

Among its primary objectives, the Mood Institute wants to encourage and help to discover and push artistic talent .

Drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, video, music, etc. ... all forms of art and creation are welcome, and this, whatever the level you have. They will be examined without any a priori.

• You have a talent or you're attracted to art
• You have already creations to make us discover
• You want to exchange with other creative artists of Mood Institute
• You would like advice to develop your art and maybe even earn money with
• You want help to sell your creations or negotiate your contracts
• ...

we can advise and help you.

The best creations will be displayed on our website in our online art gallery. The musical projects are also welcome and the best pieces will be passed as background music on the site.

Go ahead and send us your artwork by mail at:   creativity (AT) moodinstitute.com

PS : We have a special think for those who suffer from mood disorders and especially Bipolar Disorder, and who are in crisis, in severe phase because these disorders can be a weight and a handicap, even requiring periods of  hospitalization.

However, we would like to point out here some of the most positive aspects that can be found in mood disorders, particularly in bipolarity: creativity ! ... with a tendency towards success, glory or achievement.

A - History

The link between bipolarity and creativity is now established : poets, composers, painters, writers…But this does not  only concern the artistic world. One can find bipolarity and its profusion of brilliant ideas in certain political personalities, certain entrepreneurs, leaders of industry and inventors… Success stories, strokes of genius, glory, rapid changes…

The creative genius of bipolars can be expressed in all domains…

Few examples:

Famous Bipolar Depressives : Montaigne, Molière, Voltaire, Chopin

Famous bipolar actors/actresses : Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn, Ben Stiller, Cary Grant, Linda Hamilton Marilyn Monroe, Richard Dreyfuss, Linda Hamilton, Vivien Leigh, Jean Claude Van Damme, Jim Carey, Winona Ryder, Roseanne

Famous bipolar politicians and world figures : Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Princess Diana, Abraham Lincoln (politician ), Theodore Roosevelt (politician), Winston Churchill (politician), Barbara Bush, Howard Robard Hughes

Famous bipolar  writers : Virginia Woolf, Baudelaire, Hemingway, Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, Dostoiesvski, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, Cesare Pavers, Eugene O'Neill, Emily Dickinson, Michael Crichton, Agatha Christie, Jack London

Famous bipolar Poets : George Byron, Gerard de Nerval, Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Keats and Sylvia Plath

Famous bipolar composers and musicians : Schumann and Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Gioacchino Rossini, Georg Handel, Sergei Rachmaninov Jimi Hendrix, Axl Rose, Jim Morrison, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Peter Gabriel, Alanis Morissette

Famous bipolar painters : Jackson Pollock, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe

Famous bipolar scientists and philosophers : Sigmund Freud, Sir Isaac Newton, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Ford Nash

B - Definition of creativity

Creativity is a mental process involving the production of new ideas or concepts, or of new associations between pre-existing ideas and concepts.

We insist that Creativity can be expressed in all domains:

Art, fashion, organization, management, strategy, commerce, marketing, publicity, communication, negotiations, technical fields,...

The artistic part is just one of numerous expressions of creativity.

Creativity, is above all knowing how to let the spirit explore and express ideas, following inspirations outside of the patterns of usual thinking:

• Ideas
• creations
• Inventions
• innovations
• problem resolution

To be creative ...

• Is to accept to leave, at certain times, the « usual highways of thinking» to follow secondary roads
• Is to « cheat » in regards to rules, norms, constraints, usual thinking habits, pre-established things
• Is to authorize itself a somewhat controlled skid of ideas, to be able to follow less-traveled roads and see if a solution could be found elsewhere : "To think well, you must think aside" said Souriau
• Is to accept to have lapses, « missed ideas » cerebral lapses, as many sideroads into strangeness that if, not too frightening, will result in enriched thinking
• Is to consider that each problem has many solutions and that the harvesting of the greatest number of possibilities increases the chances of finding the best solution
• Is to accept to not immediately reject an idea, even if, a priori, it does not seem like it is the best fit for the considered problem
• Is to leave the images and ideas the time to be developed, to combine with each other and to flower or open up before they are rationalized and criticized

Creativity consists in this group of mostly intuitive methods and techniques but it can also be systematized to make the process of invention more efficient and organized. The mechanisms of discovery can be reproduced at will and not left  just to chance.

C - Creativity and mood disorders

Many patients suffering from mood disorders, particularly bipolar or cyclothymia, in their phases of boiling or bubbling ideas, of cerebral artificial fireworks or explosion, are therefore instinctively particularly creative.

HOW TO GET ORGANIZED !…

The most difficult things for a bipolar are to:

• Manage the scattering and the explosion of ideas at the time or in the instant  : switching from an idea to another requires organization not to forget most of them
• Avoid changing channels : After the explosion, the bipolar has a tendency to quickly switch or zap on to something else
• Find the energy to follow the thread, to persevere, to transform brilliant ideas into real projects, and most importantly, to go the distance once the creative moment or phase  has passed.

The only way for a bipolar to capitalize on this treasure of ideas and potential creativity is to make a habit of noting or writing down the maximum number of elements during each creative moment. It will therefore be possible to return to these ideas, to develop and enrich them, or in certain cases, to finally convert them into a project.

AFTER THE TEMPEST ...

After each creative storm, there is usually a great fatigue, an exhaustion, because the energy has been so intense and concentrated in a short period of time. It is therefore necessary to be conscious of it and accept that it takes a while to recover energy after every creative episode. It takes time to recharge batteries and learn how to manage the episode of depression that often may follow.

Some people suffering from bipolar disorder who know very well their own way of functioning and their cycles, can manage themselves better and better, by trying to spare or coach themselves not to burn out during their phase of exaltation and creativity,  and so limit the counter reaction that follows.

ATTENTION : This  intense cerebral work  can cause insomnia. If you are submerged in or by ideas at the moment that you go to bed or go to sleep, you should not hesitate to take notes and write things down, or even use a tool that organizes your ideas and reflections.

For more details, read the section Healthy livestyle - Sleep .

D – THE Tool that can help you to organize ideas

Mood Institute has chosen Novamind as a visual tool of mind mapping and organization of ideas. This new tool for brainstorming is already appreciated by businesses, but more generally by all individuals who want to organize their creative thoughts.

To discover, click on the following link "Organize ideas"

** Reader information : This section is mostly inspired of real-life experiences, and was written by the editorial staff of the Mood Institute, exclusively composed with patients - The members of the Medical and Scientific Committee are regularly asked to provide an advisory opinion - Last update : 10/01/2011