There is a widespread and long-running belief that great talent and great psychopathology are closely related; it dictates that no one receives the gift of genius without the curse of depression, and probably mania as well. But the truth is this: There is no hard proof that highly creative people are more susceptible to mental disorder than anybody else. Despite centuries of professional attention, the link between creativity and madness (C&M) remains more stereotype than science.

In the absence of compelling empirical evidence, C&M advocates have had to assemble their argument from other sources. These include weak studies that are cited more often than they are read, and acquire their clout from repetition, rather than valid results; the (mis-)reported opinions of Greek philosophers; melodramatic literary accounts of creative ecstasy and anguish; and lists of geniuses who are diagnosed after death, mostly from second- and third-hand reports from their contemporaries (data which, in other settings, would be known simply as “gossip”).