After thoroughly enjoying Dr Wills' 1988 book (Reference Wills and CooperWills & Cooper, 1988) I was dismayed to see his recent article (Reference WillsWills, 2003). His book detailed the real, unremitting and often unique stressors faced by those struggling to make a living from music - as opposed to the pop-psychology focus on their (allegedly) inherent psychological flaws.

Although entertaining, psychological autopsies are not valid research tools, as the author fortunately points out in the ‘limitations’ box. Further, the ‘comprehensive literature’ about the psychopathology/creativity link is shot through with badly designed studies and dramatic overstatement.

Like Wills, Jamison (Reference Jamison1989) was the sole judge of her hand-picked sample - 47 creative artists - but few authors dig up her unreplicated original work, preferring to pass along her unscientific conclusions. For example, many introductory psychology textbooks include her contention that 50% of poets have affective disorders, without noting that she had only 18 poets in her sample and moreover diagnosed affective disorder as simply ‘seeking treatment’ for it. And while Ludwig's book (Reference Ludwig1995) is full of charts and graphs, on close and trained inspection they are overwhelmingly meaningless; despite its subtitle, it actually resolves nothing at all.

Unfortunately, the tradition in this field is to pass along any confirmatory ‘mad creative’ conclusions, regardless of any liberties taken with the scientific method. Most of the common research blunders are detailed by Arnold Rothenberg (Reference Rothenberg1990), as well as in my own work (Schlesinger, Reference Schlesinger2002a ,Reference Schlesinger b ). Such flaws should have been fatal, but apparently the public appetite for the doomed artist is too great. It's a shame that so many professionals continue to feed it with their invalid speculation. As Wills understands better than most, musicians don't need anything else to worry about.