Re-examines the common view that a high level of individual creativity often correlates with a heightened risk of mental illness.

A socio-historical overview of the creativity-pathology connection: from antiquity to contemporary times -- The mad (creative) genius: what do we know after a century of historiometric research? -- Reviewing recent empirical findings on creativity and mental illness -- Building connections on sand: the cautionary chapter -- Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying creative thinking: indications from studies of mental illness -- The evolutionary genetics of the creativity-psychosis connection -- Non-linearity in creativity and mental illness: the mixed blessings of chaos, catastrophe, and noise in brain and behavior -- Artists' vulnerability to psychopathology: an integrative cognitive perspective -- Creativity and the spectrum of affective and schizophrenic psychoses -- When good is bad and bad is good: mood, bipolarity, and creativity -- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and creativity: ever the twain shall meet? -- The shared vulnerability model of creativity and psychopathology -- On the fragility of the artist: art's precarious triad -- Creativity as "compensatory advantage": bipolar and schizophrenic liability, the inverted-U hypothesis, and practical implications -- Bringing the whole universe to order: creativity, healing, and posttraumatic growth -- Inspiration and the creative process -- King Solomon and psychoneuroimmunology: creativity and life coping -- Ruminating about mental illness and creativity -- Creativity and mental illness: reasons to care and beware.