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The Mad Genius Thesis — 151 episodes
Without Religion, We Go Mad
Why Modern Freedom Inevitably Leads to Depression
Anatomy of Melancholy: The book that predicted modernity
The Birth of Tragedy: Sanity, Madness, and Greek Culture
"Dark patches": Walt Whitman's struggles with melancholy
Murder, Madness, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Basquiat: 'Perishable' - Art as a Response to Grief and Loss
"Get as Much of That Poison Out" : Tupac's Art as Therapy
César Vallejo : The Poet Who Predicted His Own Death
Mirrors and Monsters: Jorge Luis Borges's Nightmares
Rabindranath Tagore's Restless Spirit : Versatility and Contradiction
"The Drama of Desperation": Depression's Grip on James Agee
Rimbaud: Poetry, Trauma, and the Flight from Art
Borstal Boy : The Inner Turmoil of Brendan Behan
Diane Arbus – Photography, Obsession, and the Dark Side of Creativity
"'I have cultivated my hysteria": Baudelaire's embrace of mental illness
Numbers and Nerves: The Creative Struggles of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Darkness Visible, William Styron's memoir of major depression
Yukio Mishima: Art, Obsession, and Tragic Genius
The Beat Era : "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness."
The Age of Melancholy and the Failure of Modern Psychiatry
"The world has used me ill." The Story of Jurassic Mary
Melancholia : The Western Malady
The Sickness Unto Death : Finding Selfhood Through Despair and Creativity
The Divided Self : Exploring Duality in Thomas Mann's works
Magic Theater of the Mind : Hesse's Exploration of the Subconscious
The Addictive Spotlight : Maria Callas and the Perils of Fame
The Daemon Knows – Genius, Inspiration, and the American Sublime
Tolstoy's Torment : Mental Anguish and Creative Genius
From Melancholia to Depression – How Psychiatry Redefined Mood Disorders
Melancholy and Genius – The Eighteenth-Century View of Creative Despair
Camille Paglia : Order and Chaos in the Creative Psyche
From Ecstasy to Despair: The Two Sides of Isadora Duncan
Emily Dickinson : "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain"
Emperor of Eccentricity : Exploring the Mind of Howard Hughes
"Coldness & Desertion of the Spirit": Hume's Dark Night of the Soul
Hitchcock's Gaze: Vision, Voyeurism, and the Watching Birds
'My Hideous Progeny': Mary Shelley, Mental Torment, and the Birth of a Monster
What if the Right Brain was the Master and the Left Brain was his Emissary?
Melancholy and the Muse: Lincoln's Depression and Creative Leadership
Creative Illness : Jung and the Red Book
Recycling Trauma : Autobiography in the plays of Tennessee Williams
The Agony and the 'Origin': Darwin's Journey Through Illness and Inspiration.
Five Ways Split: The Fragmented Genius of Judy Garland
Nothing Was the Same: A Memoir by Kay Redfield Jamison
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
Shadow Behind the Spotlight: Marilyn Monroe’s Genius and Pain
Holden's Breakdown: Mental Health in Salinger's World
The Crack-Up : F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Maladjustment to Life"
"Mad Shelley" : The Storm of Emotion and The Spirit of Defiance
Beyond Reason: Kafka's Nightmare and the Birth of Modern Literature
"Aching Desolation": James Dean and the Art of Projecting Pain
Robin Williams: The Pain Behind the Laughter
Genius and Heroin : Creativity and Self-Destruction
The Birth of the Mad Genius Idea : A Conversation
The Evolution of the Mad Genius Concept : A Conversation
Jean-Jacques Rousseau : Restless Wanderer
"Made Mad All My Life" : Samuel Johnson's Struggle with Mental Illness
Creativity: Light, Dusk and Dark Night of Soul
The Milk of Paradise – Opium, Imagination, and 19th-Century Literature
Irritability of the Heart : Dickens's Troubled Mind
The Act of Creation and the Unquiet Mind : Finding Creativity in Mental Illness
Creativity and Crime – The Dark Side of Innovation
Tangled Brains, Brilliant Minds : Exploring the Link Between ADD and Creativity.
Dreams and Delirium: The Surrealist Exploration of Mental Illness
Surviving the Storm : Francis Ford Coppola and Bipolar Disorder
From Torment to Triumph: How manic-depression fuels the creative fire
The Fever of the Mind : William James and the Price of Creativity
Margaret Cavendish : Finding Sanity in "A World of Her Own'"
Nine Chains to the Moon and a Mind in Chaos: The Inner World of Buckminster Fuller
"A Grief Without a Pang": John Stuart Mill's Struggle with Depression
From Melancholia to Prozac – The History of Depression
A Field Guide to Melancholy
Paul Erdős – The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
Tortured artists: Ten stories of creative struggle.
Heavier Than Heaven – The Life, Art, and Struggles of Kurt Cobain
A First-Rate Madness – Mental Illness and the Making of Great Leaders
Enthusiasm and Divine Madness – Plato, Love, and the Inspired Soul
"The Bad Thing" : Depression and the Genesis of David Foster Wallace's Genius
Vincent van Gogh & Richard Dadd – Insanity, Genius, and the Search for Meaning
Jones Very – Poetry, Mysticism, and the Search for Divine Truth
From Despair to Art: Exploring Poe's Creative Process
Divine Mania – Madness, Prophecy, and Inspiration in Ancient Greece
The Dark Side of Creativity – Genius, Destruction, and the Ethics of Innovation
Byron : Stormy Passions and the Impulse to Create
Freud on the Couch : Depression, Addiction, and the Birth of Psychoanalysis
Poets on Prozac by Richard M. Berlin
Divine Madness – Psychology, Spirituality, and the Unconscious Mind
The Bipolar Express – Creativity, Cinema, and Mental Illness
Positive Disintegration : How Mental Distress Fuels Creativity
Mania – A Short History of Bipolar Disorder
From Torment to Art : Sylvia Plath's Creative Exploitation of Depression
Beyond the Moors : Unpacking the Brontë's Mental Health Struggles
Wordsworth : Finding Solace in Nature, Battling Inner Turmoil.
The Price of Genius: Is Psychopathology the Cost of Greatness?
Nietzsche: The Philosopher Who Walked The Edge of Sanity
Jim Morrison – The Myth, the Madness, and the Music
"Nature Screaming in My Blood" : The Terror of Insanity and The Scream
Sanity, Madness, and Transformation – The Psyche in Romanticism
The Alchemical Vessel : Transforming Mental Anguish into Creative Gold
William Blake: Lunatic or Genius? Exploring the Fine Line
Strong Imagination – Madness, Creativity, and the Evolution of Genius
The Cracks Where The Light Gets In: Philip K Dick's Trauma and Dissociation
Logician Kurt Gödel's Journey to the Edge of Reason
Manic Depression and Creativity – The Highs, Lows, and Genius of the Mind
Madness and the Romantic Poet – Genius, Mental Illness, and Literary Myth
Jack Kerouac : A Man Helpless Before His Own Mind
Creativity: The Magic Synthesis – Psychology, Art, and the Creative Mind
A Serious Character – Ezra Pound’s Genius, Controversy, and Legacy
Creating Minds – The Psychology of Genius and Innovation
The Neurodiversity Edge – How Inclusion Fuels Innovation
The Power of Different – Neurodiversity, Creativity, and the Mind
Dancing with Ophelia – Madness, Creativity, and Recovery
The Mystery of Creativity – Myths, Mechanisms, and the Science of Genius
Wittgenstein : Battling Angst and Discovering Logic
The Bleeding Canvas : Frida Kahlo's Agonized Poetry
Art, Activism, and the Struggles of Lorraine Hansberry
Questioning Greatness: What it really means to be gifted
The Enigma of Alan Turing – Genius, Innovation, and Isolation
Shamanic Wisdom and Mental Illness – A New Perspective on Healing
Henry Cavendish: Autism, Isolation, and Scientific Revolution
J. Robert Oppenheimer – Genius, Depression, and the Burden of the Bomb
Billie Holiday – Artistry, Addiction, and Resilience
Isaac Newton – Genius, Obsession, and the Edge of Madness
Hemingway’s Brain – Genius, Trauma, and the Cost of Creativity
ADHD is the Hunter's Mind in The Modern World
ADHD 2.0 – Creativity, Mental Health, and the ADHD Brain
Intelligence – Reconsidering IQ, Creativity, and Genius
Anger, Rage, and the Daimonic – Understanding the Dark Side of Genius
The Power of Neurodiversity – Reframing Mental Differences as Strengths
Pox – Syphilis, Genius, and the Madness of History
The Decade of Genius and Madness That Transformed Art
NeuroTribes – The History and Evolution of Autism
Autism and Creativity – The Hidden Link to Genius
Bird – The Life, Genius, and Struggles of Charlie Parker
The Creating Brain – Neuroscience of Genius and Creativity
Genius and Despair: The Inner World of Virginia Woolf
Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall by Frank Brady
Nikola Tesla – Genius, Visionary, and Enigma
The Autopsy of Genius: Examining Evidence of Beethoven's Health
A Brilliant Madness – Patty Duke’s Battle with Bipolar Disorder
The Insanity Hoax – Debunking the Mad Genius Myth
Nijinsky A Life of Genius and Madness
Robert Lowell: Poetry, Madness, and the Creative Mind
Dionysus in Literature - Exploring Literary Madness
John Nash: When Chaos Swept Away a Carefully Constructed Life
Touched with Fire – Bipolar Disorder and the Artistic Mind
Dean Keith Simonton and The Science of Greatness
Creativity and Mental Illness - Expert insights from psychology, neuroscience, and related fields.
Simon Kyaga - Rethinking the Mad Genius Myth
Introduction to the Topic