Bipolar Treatment with Art and Music

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After years of finding new ways to tackle my mood episodes before they take over my day, I’ve noticed that those I turn to most are the strategies that allow me to be creative. Art, music, dance, and more … the creative arts help with distraction, self-soothing, and even relief from the anxiety and depression...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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After finding himself in a nonfiction writing course shortly after his bipolar diagnosis, one young man discovers the cathartic power of personal narrative. By Vincent Scarpa   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...

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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,...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Many people with bipolar disorder are gifted with extraordinary creativity but what happens when the creative well runs dry? By Beth Brownsberger Mader   I suddenly thought of this topic while doing my morning yoga sun salutations. I was bending over, palms to the floor, observing through sleepy eyes my dusty area rug, pondering nothing....

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Throughout my life—especially during my ups and downs with bipolar—music has remained naturally therapeutic for me. I can turn to it any time I need a mood adjustment. “A tired mind become a shape-shifter Everybody need a mood lifter Everybody need reverse polarity Everybody got mixed feelings About the function and the form Everybody got...

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Let your personal vision board filled with your hopes, dreams, aspirations, and goals inspire you in the upcoming months. It’s common to do it during the first couple weeks of January. Even the end of January. But I say, humbug to common practice! I say do it any time of the year. You can do...

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Wendy interprets her moods and memories through the lens of her camera.   By Robin L. Flanigan   In some of her photographs, North Carolina shutterbug Wendy spotlights a Chevrolet Bel Air that reminds her of the older-model cars her grandparents drove when she was a little girl. She sees a connection between one picture...