Are smart people more prone to depression?It is not always they who make the best decisions, a high IQ is not a guarantee of success or certainty of happiness, in many cases these people are trapped in the knot of their concerns, in the abyss of existential anguish and in the despair that consumes the reserves of optimism.
There is a popular tendency to see all these geniuses of art, mathematics or science as quieter, sadder people, as very special people with different behaviors. For example, Hemingway, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe and Amadeus Mozart. Brilliant, creative and exceptional minds that brought their anguish to the brink that heralded the tragedy.
“An individual’s intelligence is measured by the degree of uncertainty he can resist. “Immanuel Kant?
But what is real about all this? Is there a direct association between a high IQ and depression? Well, we can say first of all that high intelligence does not necessarily contribute to the development of a certain type of mental disorder.
There is risk and predisposition to excessive anxiety, self-criticism and perception of reality in a very biased way, taking into account negativity; all of these factors in many cases contribute to shaping depression; now, of course, there are exceptions. In today’s society, we have brilliant people who are exploiting their potential by investing not only in their own quality of life, but also in society as a whole.
However, there are many books, studies and books that reveal this unique trend, especially among people with an IQ of more than 170 points.
Is the creative brain a very useful book to understand how the minds and minds of the smartest and most creative people work?Neurologist Nancy Andreasen conducts a detailed study that shows that there is a very significant tendency among the geniuses of our society to develop various disorders. : bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety attacks and especially panic disorders.
Aristotle himself said that intelligence goes hand in hand, melancholy. Geniuses such as Isaac Newton, Arthur Schopenhauer and Charles Darwin suffered moments of neurosis and psychosis, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh went so far as to end their own lives.
They are all well-known people, however, in our society, there have always been silent, misunderstood and lonely geniuses who inhabited their personal worlds disconnected from a reality that seemed chaotic, meaningless and disappointing.
Sigmund Freud and her daughter Anna Freud studied the development of a group of children with an IQ greater than 130 and concluded that about 6% of them ended up developing a depressive disorder.
Also well known is the work of Lewis Terman, pioneer in the psychology of education in the early twentieth century, who in 1960 began a long study on high-capacity children, called termites by the team of psychologists. above 170 points and participated in one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology, but it was not until 1990 that important conclusions began to be drawn.
Termites, the sons of Lewis Terman, who are now older adults, say that high intelligence is associated with less satisfaction in life. Although many have earned a reputation and a relevant position in society, many have tried to commit suicide on several occasions or have been involved in addictions. like alcoholism.
Another significant aspect that this group of people has said and that can also be seen in people with great intellectual abilities is that they are very sensitive to the problems of the world, they not only care about inequality, hunger or wars. are annoyed by selfish, irrational or illogical behavior.
Experts say that very intelligent people can often suffer from a dissociative personality disorder, that is, they see their own life from above, as the narrator who uses a third-person voice to see their reality objectively, but without feeling steadoly involved.
This approach usually presents “blind spots”, a concept that has a lot to do with emotional intelligence and that Daniel Goleman developed in an interesting book of the same title. Blind spots are self-deception, serious flaws in our perception of reality, the difficulty in accepting things as they are.
Very intelligent people tend to focus exclusively on the shortcomings of their environment, this hostile humanity, this strange and selfish world by nature, where it is impossible to adapt, often do not have the right emotional skills to relativize, integrate better, to find calm in this outer jungle and the inequality that concerns them so much.
In this way it can be inferred that very intelligent people often suffer serious emotional deterioration, which in turn leads us to another conclusion: high IQ, which is always highly appreciated, we must add another important factor when developing psychometric tests. .
We speak of “wisdom”, that vital knowledge to develop true satisfaction in the day to day, to shape a good image of itself, high self-esteem and the right skills to invest in coexistence and build real happiness, simple but concrete.