Adele Juda

Adele Juda (9March 188831October 1949) was an Austrian psychologist and neurologist. She studied the incidence of mental illness in gifted and creative German-speaking people. One of those included in her studies was Mozart, whom she deemed to be 'psychiatrically normal'.

Early life and education Adele Juda's father Karl was a graphic artist and director of a printing house; her mother was Maria. During her youth her family moved around and lived in Prague, Munich, and Innsbruck. She played the piano and received musical education. She had planned to become a pianist, but a movement disorder in her left hand prevented this. While being treated she met Editha Senger, who later married Ernst Rüdin. During her medical studies she worked as an assistant to Ernst Rüdin. Under him, she started the study of highly gifted individuals.

She ended her studies in the last month of the Second World War, and returned to Innsbruck in 1945. Here she worked as a specialist in nervous and mood disorders from her own home. She also worked until her death at the 'Zentralstelle für Familienbiologie und Sozialpsychiatrie' (Central office for Family Biology and Social Psychiatry) with Rudolf Cornides and Friedrich Stumpfl. She eventually died from poliomyelitis on 31 October 1949. She performed this study under Ernst Rüdin. Juda found no relation between mental illness and high intellectual capability. However, she noted that geniuses and their families showed a higher occurrence of psychosis, but concluded that psychosis impaired creativity. In a subgroup of 113 artists and writers she found a high occurrence of neurosis and suicide, specifically in poets. Their families were also more likely to have some form of mental illness.

Her research was criticised, as her inclusion criteria were rather ambiguous, and the diagnostic methods used in her time were not great at distinguishing between different schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.