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The Guardian // World // Europe

UK arts groups offer therapeutic support to performers as they challenge myth of tortured artist

Monday 5th January 2026, 5:00AM

‘You don’t have to be tortured to make great art,’ says founder of mental health support organisation Artist WellbeingFrom Vincent van Gogh to Virginia Woolf, from Nina Simone to Amy Winehouse, the tortured-artist archetype looms large: private torment fuelling public brilliance.But across opera, theatre, film and television, a growing movement is pushing back against what many now insist is a corrosive myth – the romanticised necessity of creative martyrdom. Continue reading...

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