Kay Redfield Jamison is an American clinical psychologist and writer. Her work has centered on bipolar disorder, which she has had since her early adulthood. She holds the post of the Dalio Professor in Mood Disorders and Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is an Honorary Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is also characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior, often in a social context. Such disturbances may occur as single episodes, may be persistent, or may be relapsing–remitting. There are many different types of mental disorders, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health.
A mood disorder, also known as an affective disorder, is any of a group of conditions of mental and behavioral disorder where a disturbance in the person's mood is the main underlying feature. The classification is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
Depression is a mental state of low mood and aversion to activity. It affects more than 280 million people of all ages. Depression affects a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings, and sense of well-being. Depressed people often experience loss of motivation or interest in, or reduced pleasure or joy from, experiences that would normally bring them pleasure or joy.
Links between creativity and mental health have been extensively discussed and studied by psychologists and other researchers for centuries. Parallels can be drawn to connect creativity to major mental disorders including bipolar disorder, autism, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, OCD and ADHD. For example, studies have demonstrated correlations between creative occupations and people living with mental illness. There are cases that support the idea that mental illness can aid in creativity, but it is also generally agreed that mental illness does not have to be present for creativity to exist.
Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscience, psychopharmacology, biochemistry, genetics, epigenetics and physiology to investigate the biological bases of behavior and psychopathology. Biopsychiatry is the branch of medicine which deals with the study of the biological function of the nervous system in mental disorders.
The Sylvia Plath effect is the phenomenon that poets are more susceptible to mental illness than other creative writers. The term was coined in 2001 by psychologist James C. Kaufman, and implications and possibilities for future research are discussed. The effect is named after Sylvia Plath, who died by suicide at the age of 30.
Heather A. Berlin is an American neuroscientist and licensed clinical psychologist noted for her work in science communication and science outreach. Her research focuses on brain-behavior relationships affecting the prevention and treatment of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric disorders. She is also interested in the neural basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. Berlin is host of the PBS Nova series Your Brain, the PBS series Science Goes to the Movies, the Discovery Channel series Superhuman Showdown, and StarTalk All-Stars with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Edna Foa is an Israeli professor of clinical psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she serves as the director of the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety. Foa is an internationally renowned authority in the field of psychopathology and treatment of anxiety. She approaches the understanding and treatment of mental disorders from a cognitive-behavioral perspective.
Lee Anna Clark is an American psychologist and William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Professor of Psychology Emerite in the Department of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. She used to be a professor and collegiate fellow at the University of Iowa. She was, as of 2007, the director of clinical training in the Clinical Science Program. Prior to her appointment at the University of Iowa, she was a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Her research focuses on personality and temperament, clinical and personality assessment, psychometrics, mood, anxiety, and depression.
Dennis S. Charney is an American biological psychiatrist and researcher, with expertise in the neurobiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. He is the author of Neurobiology of Mental Illness, The Physician's Guide to Depression and Bipolar Disorders and Molecular Biology for the Clinician, as well as the author of over 600 original papers and chapters. In 2022, he was listed #52 on Research.com's "Top Medicine Scientists in the United States," with an h-index of 194 with 146,109 citations across 651 publications. Charney is known for demonstrating that ketamine is effective for treating depression. Ketamine's use as a rapidly-acting anti-depressant is recognized as a breakthrough treatment in mental illness.
Rebecca Coleman Curtis is an American author, psychologist, and psychoanalyst. Curtis has written extensively on the topics of Theories of Therapeutic Action, Creativity, Unconscious Processes, the Self, Self-Defeating Behaviors, Gender and Race.
Cyclothymia, also known as cyclothymic disorder, psychothemia / psychothymia, bipolar III, affective personality disorder and cyclothymic personality disorder, is a mental and behavioural disorder that involves numerous periods of symptoms of depression and periods of symptoms of elevated mood. These symptoms, however, are not sufficient to indicate a major depressive episode or a manic episode. Symptoms must last for more than one year in children and two years in adults.
Susan Kay Nolen-Hoeksema was an American professor of psychology at Yale University. Her research explored how mood regulation strategies could correlate to a person's vulnerability to depression, with special focus on a construct she called rumination as well as gender differences.
Danielle Knafo is an American clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and author. Born in French Morocco and raised in Pennsylvania she is now a professor of psychology and psychoanalysis. She is a prolific author, and a popular speaker. She is also a professor at Long Island University-Post in its clinical psychology doctoral program. She writes and lectures on many subjects, including creativity, trauma, psychosis, sexuality and gender, and technology.
Adrian Wells, CPsychol, is a British clinical psychologist who is the creator of metacognitive therapy. He is Professor of Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology at the University of Manchester, U.K. and is also Professor II of Clinical Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Lori Altshuler was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and held the Julia S. Gouw Endowed Chair for Mood Disorders. Altshuler was the Director of the UCLA Mood Disorders Research Program and the UCLA Women's Life Center, each being part of the Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA.
Julia Rucklidge is a Canadian-born clinical psychologist who is the director of the Mental Health and Nutrition Research Group at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Her research has centered on mental health and nutrition.
John Christopher Muran is an American clinical psychologist and psychotherapy researcher.
Anne Marie Albano is a clinical psychologist known for her clinical work and research on psychosocial treatments for anxiety and mood disorders, and the impact of these disorders on the developing youth. She is the CUCARD professor of medical psychology in psychiatry at Columbia University, the founding director of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CUCARD), and the clinical site director at CUCARD of the New York Presbyterian Hospital's Youth Anxiety Center.
