Blogpost 2: Sylvia Plath Effect

Does this ever happen to you? You read a book and then every now and then you constantly pause your reading just to say “fuck” because the story is so intense, you cannot predict the happenings and the climax and conflict gives you headache. I, myself have always experience those, I’m a book worm and I have no shame in admitting it. I cannot stop myself from buying novels and if the story is good, I won’t allow myself to drop the book until I’ve finished it. Also with poetry, I always fell in love with poetry; the way the poets arrange those words in order to create a beautiful sentence that will capture your heart and soul. It’s because the writer has talent, God has given him hands of wonders. And sometimes I wonder how the heck these writers have come up with amazing stories and poetries.  

If you have to ask me which literary work has more emotions, I have to say that it is the poems. Because of the spontaneous outflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility. But according to researches that female poets are more prone to mental illness than any other creative writers the phenomenon is called “The 'Sylvia Plath' effect” in which female poets are more likely to suffer a mental illness than other writers. And because of my curiosity about that research I have come across the article about that entitled “The 'Sylvia Plath' effect” in apa.org written by Deborah Smith Bailey. In the article she mention on how a lot of questions about the connection of mental illness and creativity arise. And it was also stated that according to Pennebaker that it may be possible that Sylvia Plath writing poetry is what keeping her alive in time of her depression. Giving us the conclusion that she uses her poetries as gate for her over flowing emotions.

She said that “Popular culture has long stereotyped poets as depressed and creative scientists as mad.” This phenomenon has started when Aristotle observed the philosophers, poets and artists and saw that they are more susceptible to “melancholia.”

And yes its true most of the artists we know suffered from mental illness, and there are researchers that can show evidences. But the studies have methodological problems, they are also bias and most of all the definition of creativity is still argued today, so some of the studies have not found a link between creativity and mental illness. Bailey also said that “Kaufman found that poets--and in particular female poets --were more likely than fiction writers, nonfiction writers and playwrights to have signs of mental illness, such as suicide attempts or psychiatric hospitalizations” Which leads him to unveil his thoughts about his book and research.

 In Kaufman’s blog he wrote his views about the “Sylvia Plath Effect” in which he was the one who coined the term. He said in his article entitled “Latest thoughts on the Sylvia Plath Effect” in jamesckaufman.com that how researchers studies creative people is through their individual personal characteristics using statistics to analyze which was a little risky and inaccurate for him. And he also said that his study was only focused on the female poets comparing to the other creative writers.

He said “I’ve explored the question of why female poets – I think that one possibility is that generally, writing is quite good for you, especially expressive/emotive writing. It could be that fiction writers, memoirists, playwrights, or other writers receive mental health “boosts.””

It was suggested that because women are more emotional than men, they are more prone to the illness.  But he also said that “The general question of creativity-mental illness is an interesting but dangerous one.” Most researches are based on the biographies of the people which are an inaccurate method of research. It cannot provide enough evidence for the link of creativity and mental illness.

The thought that female poets are more prone to have mental illness is rather insulting. Because it suggest that emotions are big part of the illness and female are most likely to be emotional. But it should not stop female poets from writing great poetry. Remember there are different results in research, there is no definite answer yet to whether creativity as well as writing contributes to our mental health.