By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 17, 2012 People in creative professions are treated more often for mental illness than the general population, with a significant connection between writers and schizophrenia . So say researchers at Karolinska Institutet in their study of over one million people. In a previous study, the team showed that artists and scientists were more common among families where bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is present, compared to the general population. They expanded the current study to include many more psychiatric illnesses, including schizoaffective disorder, depression , anxiety syndrome, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, autism, ADHD , anorexia nervosa and suicide. The new study also included people in outpatient care, rather than only people who have been hospitalized. For the study, researchers tracked almost 1.2 million patients and their relatives, identified down to second-cousin level. The findings reveal that bipolar disorder is more prevalent in the entire group of people with artistic or scientific professions, such as dancers, researchers, photographers and authors. Authors, however, more commonly suffer from the other mental disorders -- including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety syndrome and substance abuse -- and are almost 50 percent more likely to commit suicide than the general population. Creative professions were more common in the relatives of patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa and, to some extent, autism. The findings suggest that perhaps mental disorders should be viewed in a new light. "If one takes the view that certain phenomena associated