e relationship between mental illness and creativity. By doing this we can point out further weaknesses of Talons report. The scientific article is entitled Creative Achievement and Psychopathology: Comparison among Professions. It is by Arnold Ludwig, M.D., the same Dr. mentioned in the popular article, and it was printed in the American Journal of Psychotherapy. Because it is an actual study, it is more detailed than the popular article. It may even be the same study that Talan was referring to in Psychology Today, but he did not give enough information about his source to be certain.In this study, the sample was more clearly stated than in the popular article. It consisted of 1028 individuals. Each individuals biography was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review over a thirty-year period. They must have lived at least part of their life in the 20th century as members of western civilization, and are deceased. There must also be at least one scholarly, well-documented, biographical source on each subject. Other variables such as age, gender, and race were not clearly stated, but Ludwig indicated that such differences existed between the subjects and that he accounted for them when analyzing the data. Since all of the subjects are deceased, the study was conducted in such a way that the subjects age was taken into account when evaluating their life. For example, for psychopathology ratings, Ludwig states that based on the available biographical material, the presence of various clusters was recorded as being definite, probable, or absent before or after age forty(337). We know that the study also accounted for gender and race differences. Ludwig stated in his psychopathology results, since gender and race differed significantly among the professions, logistic regression analyses were performed to determine if the differences held after adjusting for these variables(341). The design of the study was a survey ant the t...
