An Untapped Reservoir of Top-Notch Talent

Securing and maintaining meaningful employment is obviously valuable to the individual with persistent mental illness. What may be less obvious is that including these individuals in the workforce can be tremendously valuable to the companies employing them, as well.

Individuals with persistent mental illnesses are among the most creative and imaginative members of our society. What would the world have been like if leaders such as Lincoln, Churchill, and others had been reduced to the ranks of the unemployed? The waste of human talent would clearly have been tragic. Many people find it difficult to believe that individuals whose accomplishments were so meaningful as to change the very course of history could have endured the symptoms of a serious mental illness.

Lincoln, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Hamilton are only a few of the many individuals with bipolar disorder who have achieved recognition and fame throughout history. Others include novelist Virginia Woolf, poet John Keats, composer Robert Schumann, opera singer Gaetano Donizetti, artist Vincent Van Gogh, Boston Red Sox baseball player Jimmy Piersall, and Academy Award-winning actress Patty Duke. These individuals prove beyond a doubt that people with bipolar disorder are capable of being extraordinarily productive members of society. The tragedy is simply that they are all too often denied the opportunity to contribute.

The arrival of effective treatment for bipolar disorder unfortunately came too late for many of the individuals just mentioned. Medications used in the past to treat bipolar disorder often had the negative side effect of blocking a person’s creativity and affecting their job performance. Fortunately, medications now available have been proven to actually enhance a person’s ability to be creative and productive on the job. Businesses that employ persons with bipolar disorder often discover the enormous potential benefits these employees contribute in terms of their talent, creativity, and capability.

For most of us, our work is far more than just a way of making a living -- it is an essential part of our lives and identities. The right to meaningful, productive work is a basic human right. However, for people with persistent mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, or schizophrenia, attaining this right is extremely challenging. The misunderstanding, stigma, and shame that continue to surround persistent mental illness can result in a social exclusion that is often more painful-and more difficult to overcome than the symptoms themselves.

Experts increasingly acknowledge that work is a key factor in supporting mental wellness and warding off its reverse -- mental illness. Just as work is vital to the psychological and social well-being of those who do not suffer from persistent mental illness, it is equally vital to the well-being of those who do. Unemployment has, in fact, been found to be strongly associated with depression. Research has shown that employed individuals who become unemployed are at more than twice the risk of suffering from major depression.