{"id":2147,"date":"2019-06-10T21:05:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T21:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/?p=2147"},"modified":"2019-06-10T21:05:14","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T21:05:14","slug":"diagnosing-vincent-van-gogh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/2019\/06\/10\/diagnosing-vincent-van-gogh\/","title":{"rendered":"Diagnosing Vincent van Gogh"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI put my heart and soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.\u201d \u00a0This quote, attributed to the painter Vincent van Gogh embodies both the beauty displayed in his paintings and the presumed mental illness he suffered during his life.\u00a0 While the iconic swirls and visual auras of the former have fascinated museum-goers and art collectors alike, the enigmatic nature of the latter has also stupefied art historians and other curious academics<\/p>\n

The subject of mental health is quite prevalent in my life.\u00a0 Both of my parents are mental health professionals who have dealt with severely mentally ill patients, with conditions similar to that of van Gogh, and their passion for the human mind has inspired me to want to pursue a career in the field.\u00a0 Thus, it was of great excitement to me when, one day, in class we discussed the apparent severe mental illness of Vincent van Gogh.\u00a0 We were able to further immerse ourselves into his life when our class took a trip to the south of France and visited the town of Arles, where van Gogh\u2019s infamous ear incident took place.\u00a0 These experiences encouraged me to think about what illness actually ailed the iconic man.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A few classmates and I at a recreation of the cafe Vincent van Gogh was known to frequent in Arles<\/p><\/div>\n

While it is impossible to retroactively diagnose someone with a mental illness, it is a popular opinion among scholars that Vincent van Gogh suffered from manic depression, or bipolar disorder, as it is known today (Wolf, 2001).\u00a0 Much of the evidence for this possible diagnosis comes via letters between Vincent van Gogh, his brother, Theo, and his sister, Wilhelmina (Blumner, 2002).\u00a0 In a letter to his sister, Theo described Vincent as seeming, \u201cas if he were two persons \u2026 with arguments on both sides\u201d (Blumner, 2002). \u00a0Later, Vincent complained to his brother about his \u201cheightened emotionality\u201d and increasing reliance on alcohol to dull \u201cthe storm within\u201d (Blumner, 2002).\u00a0 Vincent also noted \u201chorrible fits of anxiety\u201d and attacks of \u201cmelancholy and atrocious remorse\u201d which would be followed by \u201centhusiasm or madness or prophecy, like a Greek oracle on the tripod,\u201d in letters to his brother (Blumner, 2002).\u00a0 The mental turmoil that Vincent noted in his letters culminated in an acute psychotic episode in which he sliced off a section of his left ear lobe and presented the piece to a prostitute (Blumner, 2002).\u00a0 During this episode, van Gogh experienced hallucinations and delusions, which required a multi-day stay in solitary confinement (Blumner, 2002).<\/p>\n

\"Image

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear- Vincent van Gogh: This work by van Gogh was painted shortly after the severed part of his left ear during a psychotic episode<\/p><\/div>\n

Both van Gogh\u2019s description of his condition in notes to his brother and his subsequent psychotic episode are potentially indicative of bipolar disorder.\u00a0 According to the National Institute of Mental Health bipolar disorder is characterized by \u201cperiods of unusually intense emotion\u201d (NIMH).\u00a0 These periods of emotion usually oscillate between manic episodes and depressive episodes.\u00a0 Van Gogh\u2019s description of periods of increased enthusiasm is consistent with mania, while his feelings of extreme melancholy are consistent with depression.\u00a0 Additionally, bipolar patients often present with other illnesses such as anxiety disorder and substance abuse (NIMH).\u00a0 Van Gogh experienced extreme levels of anxiety and he was a known to frequently have \u201ca glass too much\u201d of absinthe (Blumner, 2002).\u00a0 Occasionally, patients experiencing severe bipolar disorder can exhibit psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations or delusions, as van Gogh did during the incident in which he severed his ear (NIMH).<\/p>\n

Another key facet of bipolar disorder, as noted by the National Institute of Mental Health is its genetic risk factor (NIMH).\u00a0 In class, we discussed the prevalence of mental illnesses, specifically schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety, in the van Gogh family.\u00a0 There appears to be a strong presence of mental illness in the van Gogh family; however, there are no reported cases of bipolar disorder.\u00a0 How then, could Vincent van Gogh appear to have suffered from a disease that no one else in his family had?<\/p>\n

While there are no explicit cases of bipolar disorder in his family, there is a strong genetic link between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; in fact, heritability estimates of the disorders are estimated to between 60 and 80 percent (N\u00f6then et al., 2010).\u00a0 In 2017, the Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium published a large-scale investigation into the genetic markers of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.\u00a0 This study, which examined genomic data from over 53,000 individuals with either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, identified 114 locations in the human genome as risk factors for both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Ruderfer et al., 2017).<\/p>\n

In addition to the genetic risk factors identified in both bipolar and schizophrenic patients, the study produced another, extremely novel, finding.\u00a0 Instead of comparing only patients with bipolar disorder to patients with schizophrenia, the researchers compared data from schizophrenic patients to two subpopulations of bipolar patients: those that presented psychotic symptoms and those that did not (Ruderfer et al., 2017).\u00a0 Through this comparison, the researchers concluded that bipolar patients with psychosis are significantly more like to possess genetic risk factors associated with schizophrenia than bipolar patients without psychosis (Ruderfer, 2018).\u00a0 This genetic overlap between bipolar disorder patients with psychosis and schizophrenic patients could serve to provide the seemingly missing link in the mental illnesses attributed to the van Gogh family.<\/p>\n

To me, it is a stark, yet beautiful, reality that such a creative and influential person as Vincent van Gogh potentially suffered from a disease a debilitating as bipolar disorder.\u00a0 I think that my experience in both traveling to Arles and researching van Gogh\u2019s mental health gave me a greater appreciation of the fact that people\u2019s illnesses do not need to define them.\u00a0 The human brain, in all its diversity, is capable of creating masterworks, even in the most unlikely of places.<\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Blumer,\u00a0D. (2002). The Illness of Vincent van Gogh. American Journal of Psychiatry<\/em>, 159<\/em>(4), 519-526. doi:10.1176\/appi.ajp.159.4.519<\/p>\n

NIMH \u00bb Bipolar Disorder. (n.d.). Retrieved from https:\/\/www.nimh.nih.gov\/health\/topics\/bipolar-disorder\/index.shtml<\/p>\n

Ruderfer,\u00a0D., Sklar,\u00a0P., & Kendler,\u00a0K. (2017). Genomic dissection of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia including 28 subphenotypes. doi:10.1101\/173435<\/p>\n

Ruderfer,\u00a0D. (2018, October 17). A Revealing Genetic Comparison of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.bbrfoundation.org\/content\/revealing-genetic-comparison-schizophrenia-and-bipolar-disorder<\/p>\n

Wolf,\u00a0P. (2001). Creativity and chronic disease Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Western Journal of Medicine<\/em>, 175<\/em>(5), 348-348. doi:10.1136\/ewjm.175.5.348<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI put my heart and soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.\u201d \u00a0This quote, attributed to the painter Vincent van Gogh embodies both the beauty displayed in his paintings and the presumed mental illness he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8MxCW-yD","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2141,"url":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/2019\/06\/10\/would-lithium-be-a-good-treatment-for-vincent-van-gogh\/","url_meta":{"origin":2147,"position":0},"title":"Would Lithium be a Good Treatment for Vincent Van Gogh?","author":"Harry Huang","date":"June 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I am not an art enthusiast, but this summer of my junior year in college has brought me closer to the life of perhaps the most famous painter in the history of western art, Vincent van Gogh. Before I traveled to Europe this summer, I watched two recent movies \u201cLoving\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Neuroscience"","block_context":{"text":"Neuroscience","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/category\/neuroscience\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/files\/2019\/06\/IMG_3313-1024x683.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2029,"url":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/2019\/06\/10\/van-gogh-ing-insane\/","url_meta":{"origin":2147,"position":1},"title":"Van Gogh-ing Insane","author":"Jake Medoff","date":"June 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In the English classes that I take at Emory, there often comes a discussion about what influence, if any, the life of the artist should have on our interpretation of the source material. In most instances, it is important to allow the work to speak for itself. 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Besides that, he was also afflicted with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/files\/2019\/06\/Still-Life_-Vase-with-Fifteen-Sunflowers-236x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2095,"url":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/2019\/06\/10\/curing-van-gogh-a-shocking-revelation\/","url_meta":{"origin":2147,"position":4},"title":"Curing Van Gogh? A Shocking Revelation","author":"Daniel Son","date":"June 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"As I stared at the small frame hanging from the walls of my friend\u2019s bedroom, I found myself entranced. 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