First off, I don't think I see the phrase "mental illness" as most people do. My mind immediately says schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, psychotic disorders, Bipolar 1, severe depression, and the intense forms of PTSD/borderline personality disorder. If one says "How about anxiety disorders, other personality disorders, adjustment disorders, ADHD, etc" I sort of shrug and acknowledge that those count under the official definitions, and certainly cause pain and have a large impact. Having had episodes of mild depression (and one that was probably moderate), plus obsessive-compulsive disorder I am aware that even these cause suffering. Yet when I see research about "mental illness," part of me says "those aren't the same." This is likely because people soldier on through those somehow, lives impaired but not ruined. A percentage of people manage to carve out lives with the more serious disorders too, but the numbers are worse and it's very difficult. If you know any, congratulate them often.
I had to dig back through multiple news articles to get to this study reported in Science Direct about a correlation between intelligence and mental illness. Interestingly, the news articles all focused on the greater incidence of anxiety disorders (20% vs 10.9% in the general population) rather than on mood disorders, which had stronger numbers (26.8% 9.5%). Bethany will be pleased to see that the confidence intervals are displayed prominently.
There were also elevated rates of environmental allergies, food allergies, and asthma. The article gives a nice summary of some recent related research and a description of the hyper brain/hyper body theory they offer as an explanation. Also of interest: the incidence of professionally-diagnosed autism spectrum disorders was only slightly higher than the general population, but the self-diagnosis rate was high. FTR, I think relationships are going to show among autism, anxiety, OCD, and probably a few other things, but those aren't nailed down yet and I keep autism separate in most discussions.
13 comments:
I've always wondered whether autism—classic autism, not "on the spectrum" or "nerdy personality"—wasn't an autoimmune disorder. Its onset feels like one to me.
I also wonder whether any correlation between severe mental illness and intelligence isn't a survivor effect, perhaps literally. High intelligence may mean you are better able to keep body and soul together even in the presence of a crippling mental illness—it still badly damages your life, but you're starting from a higher plateau of capability, perhaps.
I have read somewhere a speculation that schizophrenia is on the extreme end of a spectrum describing one's propensity to draw surprising connections. Creative intelligent people do that well, but generally stop short of the theories that start to sound to ordinary people like out-and-out conspiracy fantasies.
@T99 - bits of evidence in both directions on that for you. 1) No, because you don't see people who are 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 schizophrenic. It's pretty much either-or. 2) OTOH, siblings of people with schizophrenia often show unusual word-choice and associations - something you likely wouldn't even notice unless you knew they had a psychotic sibling and were listening for it; but measurable.
Stress: "If you're not terrified, you don't understand the situation." ?
But the observation of a connection with anxiety is certainly very old: "Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain."
Have I ever recommended NeuroSkeptic to you? You'd probably like him. His take on the study is here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/10/22/intelligence-risk-illness/#.WeyRT2hSzIV
Short version: he's a little concerned this was an apples to oranges comparison for both population and diagnosis criteria.
@ bs king - thanks. I have read Neuroskeptic before, but can't remember when. I have a positive association.
The famous Michael Savage quote about liberalism always comes to my mind when I see the word "mental illness." :)
I think it was Vox Day who is 3 SD above the mean in IQ who said they thought that higher IQ people have a better ability to rationalize their mental illness. I'm not sure I buy it, but my IQ isn't anywhere near his level.
Even though psychosis is an either/or proposition, it could still be something that can go wrong only in brains with a certain propensity (or ability) to form distant connections. But even where I encountered the idea, it wasn't much more than idle speculation, and I can't remember any details.
Nice interesting post. I worked as an aid in a psyche unit for two years while in grad school where I was also focusing on Counseling and Psyche related to my field. I got the full exposure. For decades patient advocacy groups have been trying to educated the public about mental illness and the myths associated with it. Progress has been made as people no longer automatically become fearful of those diagnosed with some disorder. (Except Paranoid Schizophrenia, that one you should be cautious with) The most violence we experience of the highest intensity was from Bi Polar folks in a manic phase. The fact is many if not most people have some manifestation of a disorder of some magnitude. Most people can function well enough that it never even gets looked at. I think what you consider "mental illness" are the disorders that have a physiological component. Autism is part of that. It all comes down to chemical/electrical problems what create coping issues. Us neurotics are something else entirely.
@ T99 - schizophrenia is either - or, but other psychotic disorders are more variable.
The distant connections piece is interesting, because tangentiality, loose associations, and derailment are more common in Bipolar or schizoaffective disorder, and they do seem related to a sort of adventurousness of thought. It is difficult, because it does seem related to creativity and intelligence somewhat, but far more to the person's subjective impression that they are creative and intelligent.
Then there is the overinterpreatation, seeing connections that aren't there.
Pattern recognition, but amped up beyond the point where it's adaptive or useful? Intelligence is related to pattern recognition. Someimes I think intelligence is pattern recognition.
@ jaed - you would not be the first to think that. The ability to analogise, which is similar, has also been offered as the single best summary of intelligence. I tend not to look for simplifications but for expansions at this point, but I think it's an excellent shortcut.
In that context, notice the teaching style of Jesus: The Kingdom of God is like...You have heard it said ___, but I say...So it was in the time of Noah...A man had two sons...Consider the lilies... it seems to be analogies the whole way down.
...hmm. Is the Proverbs Test still used in schizophrenia diagnosis? Most proverbs are some sort of analogy.
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