Bipolar Treatment with Art and Music

• ARTICLE

Paintbrush in hand, Army veteran Shawn Augustson turns his bipolar depression and post-traumatic stress into something ‘bright and happy and beautiful to me.’ Some things are hard for Shawn Augustson to talk about. At the top of his list is the time he served in Iraq, from 2004 to 2006, working convoy security throughout the...

• ARTICLE

Terri Cheney nearly sank under depression and anxiety as an entertainment lawyer, then found salvation in a therapy project that became her best-selling memoir, Manic. When I was a little girl, I wrote exceedingly bad and alarmingly dark poetry that my adoring father tried to get published. Looking back on those poems, which my father...

• ARTICLE

Combine creative juices with a camera. Center your attention on the natural world. See how your mind quiets, your self-esteem grows, and your body benefits. Looking through a camera lens has changed Ron C.’s perspective of the world, and himself, for the better. A professional photographer, he credits his craft with helping him live as...

• ARTICLE

Art, music, dance, and more … the creative arts help with distraction, self-soothing, and even relief from the anxiety and depression that stem from bipolar. Using Creative Coping Skills to Self-Soothe or Slow Down Over the years I have dealt with bipolar disorder, I have made it my business to keep developing ways to meet...

• ARTICLE

With empathy, honesty, and humor, Orchestrating Change follows the fascinating story of Me2/Orchestra, the world’s only classical music organization created for people living with mental health conditions and their supporters. Orchestrating Change, a moving new documentary that debuted on public television’s WORLD Channel (formerly PBS World) this fall, shines a spotlight on Me2/Orchestra—the world’s only...

• ARTICLE

Painting and writing help transform the confusing, agitated mental activity of mania—or the heavy thought loops of bipolar depression—into something expressive and creative. My art provides a sense meaning to my struggle and a bit of freedom from my mood episodes. Creative Energy & Bipolar Disorder Like many people who live with bipolar disorder, I’m...

• ARTICLE

I knew my first graduate-school internship at an inpatient psychiatric hospital would be difficult. I didn’t know how much it would make me question my sense of self. When I was in graduate school, working toward becoming a dance/movement therapist, my program placed me in an inpatient psychiatric hospital for my first internship, right out...

• ARTICLE

Writing helps me recognize moods and manage bipolar symptoms. Bipolar and creativity I’m a creative person with bipolar. Some find that bipolar is often accompanied by an artistic temperament. From actors to musicians, painters to poets, there’s no shortage of artists who live with this mental health condition. I’m both a graphic designer and a...

• ARTICLE

During my hospitalization, I journaled faithfully through my depressions, mania, and hypomania. I remembered thoughts and experiences that had been buried or lost to time. Eventually, the truth came out and I made some big decisions to change my life for the better. Over 20 years ago, when I was hospitalized for a breakdown, I...

• ARTICLE

With exhibits at the GRAMMY Museum and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Derek Hess communicates his struggles with bipolar and alcohol through his drawings—and credits his dog for getting him through his darkest days. If ever there were a way to tap into the human psyche and lay it bare for all to...

• ARTICLE

During a hospitalization, an entrepreneur with bipolar disorder discovers how music can create a shared community and a way forward in difficult times. As a touring musician in my 20s, I enjoyed many wonderful times. But as I look back, it’s actually a sing-along in a mental health clinic that to this day is the...

• ARTICLE

Recent research is yielding insights into the connections between bipolar and creativity—and not just artistic accomplishment, but also innovative thinking and entrepreneurship. Author Virginia Woolf saw her artistry and her mood extremes as being inextricably linked. In a letter to a friend in 1930, she wrote of her “madness” that “in its lava, I still...

• ARTICLE

At times it may be difficult to remain optimistic with a bipolar diagnosis, but glimpses of hope exist if you keep your eyes and ears open. As both an entrepreneur and a touring musician, my twenties provided many moments of privilege. But as I look back, it’s actually a sing-along in a mental health clinic...

• ARTICLE

After finding himself in a nonfiction writing course shortly after his bipolar diagnosis, one young man discovers the cathartic power of personal narrative. A month after my first manic episode, I found myself in an undergraduate nonfiction writing workshop. Which was odd, as what I had gone to college to write and study was fiction—imagined...

• ARTICLE

Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, returns to the topic of how mania, depression, and creativity connect, in her latest book about the poet Robert Lowell. It’s impossible to summarize the achievements of Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD. Instead, a few highlights: Holder of an endowed professorship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Inspirational role model,...

• ARTICLE

One man’s story about his passion for writing, his fear of medicating his mood, and keeping his creativity I tiptoed into the packed, dimly lit performance studio for my first ever spoken word poetry event. My eyes adjusted quickly and my ears opened to a deep, booming voice: “When you and I tango, winter smiles.” Around the room, the audience swayed....

• ARTICLE

Music allows me to remember and even relive the better parts of who I was in times of stability––it’s a vital part of the plan I have to manage my moods. My iTunes crashed.   Not only that, my CD player is broken. It’s been months since I’ve made a fresh tape. Buzzkill!     ‘Fresh’ doesn’t...

• ARTICLE

Director and screenwriter Paul Dalio’s feature film takes a hard and gritty look at love, mania, creative inspiration, and making peace with bipolar. After Paul Dalio was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he struggled to understand what it meant. Was he irretrievably broken, or should he welcome mania as a gift granting heightened creativity? Would taking...

• ARTICLE

Watch the trailer for the new movie by director and screenwriter, Paul Dalio. His feature film, starring Katie Holmes, takes a hard and gritty look at love, mania, creative inspiration, and making peace with bipolar. This dramedy stars Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby as a couple, both living with bipolar disorder, who meet in a psychiatric hospital...

• ARTICLE

The correlation between creativity and “manic depression” remains controversial. Yet there’s no denying the long list of luminaries with bipolar. Here’s a sampling of those artistic greats. The connection between bipolar disorder and creativity is long disputed, particularly when it comes to the misplaced fear that treating bipolar symptoms risks the loss of artistic expressiveness....