In my last blog post, “Mental Illness at the Movies,” I discussed Charles Darwin’s hallucinations in the film, Creation, and concluded that “the psychotic strand may in the end be an advantageous trait.”
Several days later, in a piece in the New York Times Magazine, titled “Depression’s Upside ,” Jonah Lehrer broached a similar possibility: that depression, not psychosis per se, may be an adaptation favored by evolution. He cited several experts who have argued that depression can improve one’s focus and enhance one’s analytical skills.
