Sylvia Plath effect

The Sylvia Plath effect is the phenomenon that poets are more susceptible to mental illness than other creative writers. The term was coined in 2001 by psychologist James C. Kaufman, and implications and possibilities for future research are discussed. The effect is named after author Sylvia Plath, who died by suicide at the age of 30.

Building on the more general research that, from early adolescence through adulthood, women are twice as likely as men to experience depression, Kaufman's work further demonstrated that female poets were more likely to experience mental illness than any other class of writers. In addition, female poets were more likely to be mentally ill than other eminent women, such as politicians, actresses, and artists.

Although many studies (e.g., Andreasen, 1987; Jamison, 1989; Ludwig, 1995) have demonstrated that creative writers are prone to mental illness, this relationship has not been examined in depth.

Kaufman himself wrote an editorial for Europe’s Journal of Psychology classifying his essay as inaccurate and stated "As I matured and studied more aspects of creativity, I was less thrilled about the Sylvia Plath Effect legacy [...] I made several arguments against the importance of my own work".

Plath's illness and suicide have spawned many articles in scientific journals, but almost all have been focused on issues of psychodynamic explanation and have been unsuccessful in dealing directly with the clinical history and diagnosis. The view has been broadly proliferated that hers was a typical bipolar disorder.

Supporting evidence

In one study, 1,629 writers were analyzed for signs of mental illness.