‘Touched With Fire’ by Kay Redfield Jamison

Just occasionally – once every three years or so – I stumble across a book which transforms my understanding of something. It last happened in 2021 when I read Tony Ashworth’s book about the lived experiences of soldiers fighting in trenches during the first world war. A N Wilson’s biography of Jesus Christ had a similar impact, as did Martin Weiner’s book on ‘the decline of the industrial spirit’, David Goodhart’s ‘Road to Somewhere’ and pretty well all the books I have read by Steven Pinker. Such books shed new light on a subject, vastly increase my understanding and change my perspective forever. This is such a book.

‘Touched With Fire’ was written back in 1993, and I am sure that the relevant science has moved on considerably since then, but this book is nonetheless extraordinarily persuasively argued. It is about the experience of living with manic-depression and the strong propensity for artists, composers, novelists and poets to be bipolar to some degree. This, according to Kay Redfield Jamison, is no accident because manic depression is, at least in people who are highly imaginative, associated with unusual levels of creativity:

The basic argument of this book is not that all writers and artists are depressed, suicidal or manic. It is, rather, that a greatly disproportionate number of them are; that the manic-depressive and artistic temperaments are, in many ways, overlapping ones; and, that the two temperaments are causally related to one another.

The book starts simply by setting out what manic depression is and how it manifests itself among those whose brains are wired in this manner. When in a depressed state, she explains, a manic-depressive person experiences ‘a morbidity and flatness of mood along with a slowing down of virtually all aspects of human thought, feeling and behaviour that are most personally meaningful’. By contrast, manic phases are characterised by an ‘exalted or irritable mood, more and faster speech, rapid thought, brisker physical and mental activity levels, quickened and more finely tuned senses, suspiciousness, a marked tendency to seek out other people, and impulsiveness.’

For me the key learning point – one that is central to the book’s argument – is that manic-depression does not for most people, most of the time manifest itself in an extreme and potentially dangerous manner. Symptoms are instead experienced in a modest form. The periods of depression are manageable, while what is called ’hypomania’ - periods of in which mild mania is experienced - can have some beneficial effects. Who would not, Kay Redfield Jamison asks, ‘want an illness that has among its symptoms elevated and expansive mood, inflated self-esteem, abundance of energy, less need for sleep, intensified sexuality’ along with ‘sharpened and unusually creative thinking’ and ‘increased productivity’?

The book is particularly interesting because the author is not only a leading medical practitioner and researcher in this field of medicine, but is also someone who herself suffers (a term she uses throughout the book) from the illness herself.

Having explained exactly how the condition is experienced and what impact it has, she goes on to present some detailed and compelling evidence concerning the remarkably high proportion of highly creative people who are bipolar. The focus then shifts to the past and to the large number of celebrated writers, artists and composers who are either known to have been manic-depressives or for whom the evidence strongly suggests probably did have the condition. Leading poets are a particular focus because so many wrote about their mood swings in their work.

Jamison discusses the cases of Byron, Tennyson, Lowell and Coleridge in some detail, pointing out that the condition was inherited and also passed on by them to their own children. The high number of suicides, and failed suicide attempts, among leading artists is also discussed here – including Sylvia Plath whose life and work is of particular interest to me at present – but also Van Gogh, Hemingway, Lowry and Woolf. All were manic depressives, as according to this book were Irving Berlin, Leo Tolstoy, F Scott Fitzgerald, Emile Zola, Mary Wollsencroft, Paul Gaugin, William Blake and seemingly pretty well every romantic composer whose names we are all familiar with.

She looks at the times of the year in which great artists and writers are at their most productive and creative, demonstrating that it tends to be in spring and autumn which, because moods tend to change with the seasons, are the times at which bipolar personalities tend to experience a mix of manic and depressive symptoms:

In a sense depression is a view of the world through a glass darkly, and mania is a shattered pattern of views seen through a prism or kaleidoscope: often brilliant but generally fractured. Where depression questions, ruminates and is tentative, mania answers with vigour and certainty. The constant transition in and out of these constricted then expansive thoughts, subdued and then violent responses, grim and then ebullient moods, withdrawn from and then involving relationships, cold and then fiery states – and the rapidity and fluidity of moves across and into such contrasting experiences – can be painful and confusing. Such chaos, in those able ultimately to transcend and shape it to their will, can, however, result in an artistically useful comfort with transitions, an ease with ambiguities and with life on the edge, and an intuitive awareness of the coexisting and oppositional forces at work in the world. The weaving together of these contrasting experiences form a core and rhythmic brokenness is one that is crucial both to the artistic and manic-depressive experience.

It is though, the experience of hypomania – the milder form – which Jamison argues enables manic depressives to create their finest and most exceptional work because during these phases their minds quicken and become more flexible. They also gain an unusual capacity ‘to combine ideas or categories of thought in order to form new and original connections’.

Currently we read a lot about neurodiversity and about the considerable strengths that people with a variety of mental orientations can bring to workplaces. This book predates this movement, but bolsters and supports the underlying idea. For some people, while manic depression can bring some appalling consequences both for them and their families, it also enables them to attain remarkable artistic and creative heights.

The book, however, rightly ends on a more downbeat note, urging caution when making too many assumptions about the appropriate medication and therapies to prescribe and urging readers to avoid any temptation to celebrate the role played by manic-depression in the creation of great art, music and writing:

Although manic-depressive illness is much more common in writers and artists than in the general population, it would be irresponsible to romanticise and extremely painful, destructive and lethal disease. Most people who suffer from manic-depressive and depressive illnesses are not unusually creative, and they reap few benefits from their experiences of mania and depression; even those who are highly creative usually seek relief from their suffering.

There is some repetition in this book, and on occasion I think historical figures are identified as manic depressives on relatively limited evidence. But overall it is thought-provoking, highly informative, enlightening and, above all, very persuasively argued.