Dubious Disorders

Gartner is the latest in a gushing stream of authors and spokespeople who identify themselves as having a disorder or rare group of personality traits that one day might have landed them on medication or in an asylum, but that today are considered unique and eclectic, and even in some cases essential to success. It’s a controversial idea that some say makes light of serious disorders. Others condemn it as a useless way of talking about personality and say that it may suggest that some disorders are worth hanging onto.

As I wrote about previously, Robert Jergen, an ADHD adult, wrote a book about his ability to regulate his ADHD. It seems that there is a trend to identify oneself with a particular ailment or disorder to sell books.

In the following article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dr. John Gartner identifies himself as having “hypomania,” a disorder that he identifies with the likes of Apple founder Steve Jobs, Chris Columbus, etc. Critically, one must wonder what benefit these books have other than to produce income for the authors.

Let us now praise … hypomania?

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

By Alana Semuels, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

You probably wouldn’t think that this guy you know – the one who talks incessantly, interrupts constantly, and has grandiose ideas about his own potential in life and love – would have anything in common with Christopher Columbus, William Penn or Andrew Carnegie.

But psychiatrist John Gartner thinks that your friend is one of a rare breed that has built America, and further, that such people – who can be defined as hypomanics – are essential to the future of this country.

In his recent book, “The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a little) Craziness and (a lot of) Success in America,” Gartner argues that some of history’s most influential figures were successful because they were hypomanics.

Gartner is the latest in a gushing stream of authors and spokespeople who identify themselves as having a disorder or rare group of personality traits that one day might have landed them on medication or in an asylum, but that today are considered unique and eclectic, and even in some cases essential to success. It’s a controversial idea that some say makes light of serious disorders. Others condemn it as a useless way of talking about personality and say that it may suggest that some disorders are worth hanging onto.

A hypomanic edge?

Hypomania is tough to define – medically it might be called a mild form of extreme excitement or passion, a mania that is often free of deep depression. Gartner is a hypomanic, and compares others like him – such as Apple founder Steve Jobs and Revolutionary War era statesman Alexander Hamilton – to Babe Ruth in that, metaphorically speaking, they hit lots of home runs but also strike out a lot. He claims that every single religious prophet was or is bipolar, and to some extent, hypomanic.

Gartner estimates that about 3.5 percent of the U.S. population is hypomanic.

“We’re irritating, arrogant, impulsive and frustrated that things aren’t far enough along,” he said. “We’re people who are generating ideas, some of which will work.”

Central to his argument is that America, as a nation of immigrants, has a greater population of hypomanics than countries with a low rate of immigration. Immigrants, after all, took bold risks when they decided to come to America.

Gartner first got the idea for his book during the dot.com boom, when he interviewed a bunch of CEOs from tech companies. All seemed to have the same hypomanic traits, from their innovative ideas to their abrasive personalities.

For the book, he picks notable figures from history and diagnoses them as hypomanic on the basis of the documents they left behind.

Integral to their success was their hypomania, he says, but it also was integral to their failure, because they generate and invest in hundreds of different ideas, some that work, some that are flops.

But this way of thinking also could trivialize a debilitating mental health state that is dangerous if not treated.

Alexander Hamilton, for example, was killed in a duel. David Selznick, a Hollywood writer mentioned in Gartner’s book, had deep fits of depression and sadness and gambled his money away. Craig Venter, the decoder of the human genome, tried to kill himself in Vietnam.

Claiming that hypomania breeds success is like embracing depression in artists because it makes them more creative, or hiring executives with ADHD because it allows them to think outside the box.

“Is the suffering of the illness necessary in order to motivate or inspire great art?” asked Dr. Michael Thase, a professor of psychiatry at UPMC’s Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. “It is fair to say that if people have illnesses that are placing their lives in danger, they should be treated.”

When conditions are treated properly, patients won’t necessarily lose the aspects of their personality that make them unique, such as creativity.

Peter Kramer, the Brown University psychiatrist, put forth a similar argument in his recent book “Against Depression,” which explains depression as a disease rather than a means to creativity.

Gartner argues that hypomania certainly has its down sides, and that mild medications can take the edge off the intense emotions. But, “It’s easy to overmedicate hypomanics,” he says. “To take away their creativity, their edge.”

He worries that future genetic testing for a bipolar gene could genetically engineer genius, hypomanics among them, out of the human race.

A club with no real members

It’s that mentality – that hypomanics are an elite bunch who hold the future of America in the palms of their always-moving hands – that has caused Gartner the most trouble, by giving an excuse to people with strange and often irritating habits to hold onto them as part of their genius.

By definition, most hypomanics will think that they’re geniuses out to change the world, whether or not they’ve got a shot. Those who do proudly wear the label of hypomania are more likely to be people with more serious disorders who would rather think of themselves as geniuses than as mentally ill, said Laurence McKinney, founder of hypomanics.com.

McKinney, a Harvard grad, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed inventor of the guitar reverb, says that most hypomanics who have contacted him would rather not be typecast as having any type of a mania. In this way, founding an association of hypomanics is a bit like herding cats.

But like Gartner, McKinney thinks that true hypomanics are more successful than the average slow-moving human. In his eyes, they’re part of a club that just moves faster and does more, and has more capacity for doing something really great.

Or, as he puts it, in a typically hypomanic way:

I am fast. I have to be careful, because if I don’t watch myself, people will think I’m manic. Well I can be. But I’ve always been that way. So most people seem to me to be sort of slow. I have to watch it though. For this reason, I’d rather – and for the gentlemen or women I talked to who are true hypomanics – they’d rather have people know them for their accomplishments.