I have not finished "Touched with Fire" yet-- I am about 1/3 of the way through. What I have found so far is that Jamison has stated that the relationship between schizophrenia and creativity is not as expected or prevalent as the relationship between manic depressive illness/depression and creativity because of the severe disorganization and disorder of thought that often accompanies schizophrenia. This does not mean people will schizophrenia cannot be, or are not, creative. There are exceptions to every single general finding or statement.

Psychotic Phil, if you are 13 years old and you are interested and able to understand writing from Jamison and others, then you are way ahead of a lot of people your age. If you have a diagnosis of schizophrenia on top of that, that's even more awesome. You are proof that there are major exceptions to generalizations.

I understand that you have your opinions about Jamison-- I respect and admire her so much. She has done so much not only for the research of bipolar disorder, but she has given inspiration to people like me who have a mental illness and are in the field of psychology. I think she's an incredibly talented writer and I thank her for teaching me the value in being open and honest about having an experience with an illness when you are the same field that treats that illness.

With respect to all of the talk in other forums about locked threads/deleted threads, while I'm glad that this thread remains open (and do not think that it should be locked or deleted) I am surprised that calling her a '*****' in the title and the body of the thread would be permitted. Just an observation.