Listener-supported KSUT delivers NPR News and Music Discovery for the Four Corners, on-air and online, from its studios on Southern Ute lands in Ignacio, Colorado.

KSUT is an independent, non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors and is not a tribally owned station or service.

© 2026 KSUT Public Radio

NPR News and Music Discovery for the Four Corners

Donate

Play Live Radio

Next Up:

0:00

0:00 0:00

Available On Air Stations

What does 'artistic temperament' really mean? In her new book, "Touched With Fire: Manic-Dep...

Fresh Air

Published March 25, 1993 at 10:00 PM MST

2: What does 'artistic temperament' really mean? In her new book, "Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" (Free Press), Kay Jamison has studied the psychological makeup of many of our most revered artists--Byron, Tennyson, Van Gogh, Hemingway--and linked their genius to manic-depression. Jamison looks at current treatments for manic-depression, and considers their affect on a patient's ability to create. Kay Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.