Talk:Sylvia Plath effect

I wonder whether this 'finding' deserves a slot in Wikipedia. With all due respect, it's pretty shaky when it comes down to terms:

-- 'mentally ill'? a spectrum of diagnoses ... -- 'poet'? how defined?

and maybe more important: just downright ghoulish.

I really don't know anything about the poetry of Sylvia Plath or her life and death, but if a 'Sylvia Plath effect' can even be said to exist, then its existence would seem to be on shaky grounds even within the sort of community that might encourage the naming of such trends after one of those who perhaps fell victim to it, were it even a trend. Without getting into substantive debate on either side or in any court regarding the content of this article, I move for its deletion or integration into article(s) on suicide, poetry, or Sylvia Plath. While it may be true that there exist far less worthwhile articles on wikipedia that is no excuse for having this one exist. I just regret having followed a daisychain of links to here that I have no idea how to go through the 'proper channels' to have this deleted/integrated (as if it doesn't have ample mention in relevant poetry articles or suicides of popular poets, etc.), as this talk page will probably sit here for years to come accumulating dust until someone with greater knowledge of the workings of WP watches the Family Guy episode that references Sylvia Plath and arrives here. til then, let the opinion be affirmed that this is hardly deserving of its own article regardless of a few mentions in whatever shaky journals it's merited already. Mr0t1633 (talk) 03:37, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, is it not a little disrespectful to a wonderful poet, who also happened to suffer from mental illness to allow her lasting legacy to be a note in pointless psycological exercise? —Preceding unsigned comment added by --Im-Not-Edward-- (talk • contribs)


 * Does seem like a can of worms, but the article James C. Kaufman lists quite a few places which have covered this (New York Times, NPR, BBC, etc). If that list is accurate, then the subject probably should be covered one way or another.  Are there reliable sources which offer a contrary view or evaluate whether the conclusion in Kaufman's paper is warranted? Kingdon 20:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)



the effect is important, even if seemingly poorly defined and apparently goulish. First, like any scarey story, the subject is "Goulish" only because it is poorly defined; the imagination is allowed to run free by lack of data. It is poorly defined as simply, "mentally ill" as opposed to "Depression", "Bipolar Disorder", or any other definition because the subject matter refers to why an otherwise seemimgly normal and intelligent person would kill themselves. This is not about why an openly psychotic person would kill themselves. The argument is one of empirical reasoning to the professional. The first reason to consider, when a person with no outward signs of any type of mental illness kills themself, is depression, not schizophrenia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.252.48.158 (talk) 18:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Earcanal (talk) 17:38, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) The article wording seems to lean towards "poetry causes mental illness".  At best, there's a correlation.
 * 2) I would suggest that for an 'effect' to be associated with someone's name it requires
 * 3) Significant evidence to support the theory
 * 4) The name should be created, or at least extensively supported, by someone other than the person associated with the theory (which is why I didn't include this in List of psychological effects)

In addition to the comments noted above, I think it's a little strange that the article essentially serves as a partial list of poets and authors who killed themselves instead of simply suffering from mental illness. Frobird (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Educational Assignment
Hi, all! For my senior psychology lab requirement, I will be critiquing and modifying this article. I plan on researching more "poets" who suffered from mental illnesses and adding them as individual sections. Furthermore, I would like to research and add information about Kaufman's discovered "phenomenon."