Mental health facts and figures

“Creativity is divine madness, a gift from the gods”

Plato

The majority of artists in the world doesn’t live by their art.

In real world, proportionally, very few artists can work and make a living from their talent and their art. From visual artists to poets, writers actors, photographers, musicians, designers, among others, only this fact is already an essencial reason for frustration, unhappiness and stress. Imagine those ingredients on someone who is more emotional sensible or with happiness hormones production failure? It’s a BOMB to explode, and often times it does!

In recent years, there has been increasing acknowledgement of the important role mental health plays in achieving global development goals, as illustrated by the inclusion of mental health in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2019, World Health Organization launched the WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health (2019-2023): Universal Health Coverage for Mental Health.

Increased investment is required on all fronts: for mental health awareness to increase understanding and reduce stigma; for efforts to increase access to quality mental health care and effective treatments.

That’s what dxpression will pursue and achieve.

“Mental illness is one of the leading global health challenges of the 21st century and is a major factor in the overall disease burden worldwide”

World Health Organization

Mental disorders and neurodiversities include: depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychoses, anger, anorexia, antisocial personality, bine eating disorder, body dysphoric disorder, borderline personality disorder, bulimia, claustrophobia, dissociative disorders, fabricated or induced illness, health anxiety , hoarding disorder, Munchausen's syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, personality disorder, phobias, postnatal depression, postpartum psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychotic depression, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), skin picking disorder, social anxiety (social phobia), stress, tricotilomania (hair pulling disorder), and developmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD or learning disabilities, Down syndrome and addictive behaviors.

They are generally characterized by the combination of distinguish thoughts, perceptions, emotions, behaviour and relationships with others.

They affect a person’s communication and social skills which result from the barriers imposed by societal norms, causing social exclusion and inequity, impacting their safety and well-being, and may turn them to be dependent on support in all areas of their life. People with mental health conditions often experience severe human rights violations, discrimination, stigma, a lack of awareness, and lack of appropriate infrastructure that cause exclusion.

Depression affects 300 million people worldwide. That’s 5% of the global population, jumps significantly to 10-20% of people in developed countries. More women are affected by depression than men.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression

Depression was ranked as the 2nd leading cause of disability worldwide, and in 26 countries, it was the leading driver of disability.

Bipolar disorder affects about 45 million people worldwide,

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder, affecting 20 million people worldwide,

Developmental disorder is an umbrella term covering intellectual disability and pervasive developmental disorders including autism, in US 17%, of children aged 3 through 17 years have one or more developmental disabilities.

More than 700 000 people die due to suicide every year, is the 4h leading cause of death among 15-19 teens,

Determinants of mental health and mental disorders include not only individual attributes but also social, cultural, economic, political and environmental factors such as national policies, social protection, standards of living, working conditions, and community support. Stress, genetics, nutrition, perinatal infections and exposure to environmental hazards are also contributing factors to mental disorders.

“Nobody should be denied access to mental health care because she or he is poor or lives in a remote place.”

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,

Director-General of the World Health Organization

Artists and mental health

“It remains to be seen whether madness does not represent, perhaps, the highest form of intelligence.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), writer

An endless list of famous artists, some of them suffering from serious psychic disorders, seems to confirm the relationship between art and mental health conditions. Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Lord Byron, Leo Tolstoy, Sergei Rachmaninov, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, Beethoven, Francisco Goya, Ernest Hemingway, Edvard Munch, - their celebrated creative power went hand in hand with a psychic instability clearly endowed with pathological traits. Extreme mood swings, manias, fixations, alcohol or drug addiction still plague the lives of many creative minds today.

From 70’s,Nancy Andreasen, a psychiatrist at the University of Iowa, began to systematically investigate the supposed link between genius and madness. Thirty writers whose creative talent had been put to the test in the university's renowned authors' workshop took part in her experience.

80% of writers had regular mood disturbances,
43% of artists met criteria for diagnosing one or another form of manic-depressive illness,
During the study, two writers committed suicide.

The psychiatrist proved for the first time and with scientific methods that, behind the supposed connection between high creativity and the sick psyche, there was something more than the mere commonplace.

https://www.psiquiatriageral.com.br/psicopatologia/sob_genios_loucos.htm

In 1983, Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychologist at the University of California, conducted a study in which she obtained clear and similar results: 47 renowned British painters and poets. Following the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), it examined the presence of mood disorders characterized by depressive phases. Such psychic ailments, characterized as manic depressions, are among the mood disorders that Jamison was looking for in his study based on this research, Jamison concluded that the large number of artists diagnosed with depression or bipolar disorders could no longer be attributed to chance. She found that:

40% of the artists examined had required medical help at some point in their lives - a rate 30 times higher than the average for the population,
One in two poets had already resorted to psychiatric treatment due to depression or manic episodes.

In the 1980s, Hagop Aksikal, a psychologist at the University of California, interviewed 20 other European artists using the DSM criteria. They examined the creativity of 17 patients with overt manic depression and 16 cyclothymic patients - the milder form of bipolar disorder - based on the so-called Lifetime Creativity Scale. Patients, turned out to be much more creative, fared better than the group of people used for comparison, made up of individuals with no psychiatric history.

https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/310981

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/310981/WHO-MSD-19.1-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Two-thirds of them suffered from recurrent depressive episodes, often combined with so-called hypomanic states - the less pronounced form of mania.
half of the artists had faced depression at some point in their lives. A similar trend, Aksikal had already observed among blues musicians in the United States.

Yayoi Kusama is the best-selling female artist in the world. At nearly 90 years old, she remains impressively productive and popular.

But before reaching this high-profile position, Kusama had to overcome childhood trauma and watch her ideas being stolen by male colleagues - episodes that worsened mental illness and suicide attempts. Her survival story is extraordinary.