Rhodes N, Dowker A, Claridge G
St Anne's College, Oxford, UK.
Br J Med Psychol. 1995 Dec;68(4):311-21. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1995.tb01838.x.
It has long been supposed that there is a connection between the mental processes of psychosis and those of creativity. The present study aimed to investigate this idea by means of a comparison between the poetic output of psychotics and that of normals, taking as its starting-point the notion that if there are observable differences between these two groups in terms of subject matter and linguistic features, this would suggest that creativity and psychosis are not to be identified with each other. Eighty poems by contemporary, non-professional poets (40 by psychotics and 40 by normals) were analysed on 11 different dimensions. The two samples of poems were highly similar on most of the dimensions investigated. The main differences found were in the incidence of self-analysis as a theme, reference to proper names and specific locations, and in the proportion of metaphors which fell into the category 'psychological/physical'. The two latter differences appeared to be largely a product of the first. It was concluded that although 'normal' and 'psychotic' poetic activities are not identical, they are closely related. This may be either because general poetic creativity does have psychotic features, or because the poetic function of language was relatively spared in at least this sample of psychotics.
长期以来，人们一直认为精神病的心理过程与创造力的心理过程之间存在联系。本研究旨在通过比较精神病患者和正常人的诗歌作品来探究这一观点，其出发点是，如果这两组在主题和语言特征方面存在可观察到的差异，那么这将表明创造力和精神病并非彼此等同。对当代非专业诗人的80首诗歌（40首来自精神病患者，40首来自正常人）在11个不同维度上进行了分析。在所研究的大多数维度上，这两组诗歌样本高度相似。发现的主要差异在于自我分析作为主题的出现频率、对专有名词和特定地点的提及，以及属于“心理/生理”类别的隐喻比例。后两个差异似乎在很大程度上是第一个差异的产物。研究得出结论，虽然“正常”和“精神病”的诗歌活动并不相同，但它们密切相关。这可能是因为一般的诗歌创造力确实具有精神病特征，或者是因为至少在这个精神病患者样本中，语言的诗歌功能相对未受影响。
