Alice Weaver Flaherty

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Alice Flaherty
Alice Flaherty in 2013
Born
Alice Weaver Flaherty

(1963-07-21) 21 July 1963 (age 60)
Morristown, New Jersey, United States
Spouse
Andrew John Hrycyna
​
(m. 1986)​
Children2
Parents
  • Franklin Trimby (father)
  • Sarah Louise (mother)

Alice Weaver Flaherty is an

neurologist. She is a researcher, physician, educator, and author of the 2004 book The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain, about the neural basis of creativity.[1]

Early life and education

Alice Flaherty was born on 21 July 1963 in Morristown, New Jersey to mechanical engineer Franklin Trimby and librarian Sarah Louise.

unincorporated community in Mendham Township, New Jersey and graduated from West Morris Mendham High School.[3] She completed her undergraduate degree and her medical degree at Harvard University as well as a fellowship there. She also completed a Ph.D. at MIT
.

Career

Flaherty is a joint associate professor of

somatoform disorders."[4][5]

She writes in various genres, including "

The San Francisco Chronicle
.

Experience with hypergraphia

After her

premature twin boys died soon after their birth, Flaherty was full of grief. Several days later, however, she "awoke one morning with an overwhelming desire to put everything on her mind on paper".[8] She describes her experiences with hypergraphia
, this overwhelming urge to write. She claims she could not stop for four months. A similar experience occurred after the birth of her premature twin girls, who survived. Following the two births, her abilities to produce creative works were heightened. The Midnight Disease tried to make sense of this phenomenon.

Media work

Flaherty gave a TEDx talk Danger and Creativity, in 2019.[9] She was a consultant on two TV drama series pilots based on her life: The Madness of Jane, created by Rob LaZebnik, and Hysteria, created by Shaun Cassidy. She has appeared on many TV and radio broadcasts as a public advocate for the abilities of patients with brain illnesses. She was featured on the podcast The Great God of Depression, created by Pagan Kennedy, about her interactions with the writer William Styron.[10] Her image hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the oil painting Museum Epiphany 3 painted by Warren and Lucia Prosperi.[11] She was the protagonist of Bedside Manner, directed by Corinne Botz, which in 2016 won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Documentary, DOC NYC, Oscar-qualifying.[12]

Publications

Selected journal articles

  • Graybiel, A.M., Aosaki, T., Flaherty, A.W., Kimura, M. "The basal ganglia and adaptive motor control" (1994) Science, 265 (5180), pp. 1826–1831.
  • Flaherty, A.W., Graybiel, A.M. "Input-output organization of the sensorimotor striatum in the squirrel monkey" (1994) Journal of Neuroscience, 14 (2), pp. 599–610.
  • Flaherty A.W. "Frontotemporal and dopaminergic control of idea generation and creative drive". J Comparative Neurology. 2005;493(1):147-53.
  • Flaherty, A.W. "Creativity and disease: Mechanisms and treatment". Canadian J. Psychiatry. 2011;56(3):132-143.

Books and non-technical articles

References

  1. ^ Ely, Elissa (17 March 2009). "From Bipolar Darkness, the Empathy to Be a Doctor". New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  2. ^ "Flaherty, Alice W. 1963– | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2023-08-06.
  3. Newspapers.com
    . "Alice W. Flaherty, daughter of Franklin and Sarah Flaherty of Brookside, is one of four New Jersey graduating high school students to receive a James B. Fisk Merit Scholarship, sponsored by Bell Laboratories... Flaherty was a student at West Morns Mendham High School and plans a pre-law major at Harvard University."
  4. ^ "Alice Flaherty | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst". connects.catalyst.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  5. ^ "Boundary-breaking neurologist treats patients other doctors give up on". STAT. 2018-06-19. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  6. ^ Profile Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine at David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University
  7. ^ Profile at ResearchCrossroads
  8. Harvard Gazette
    . Harvard University.
  9. ^ "Danger and Creativity". ted.com. April 2019. Retrieved 2022-03-02.
  10. ^ "The Great God of Depression". radiotopia.fm. 2018. Retrieved 2022-03-02.
  11. ^ "Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston, to unveil painting depicting gallery in art of the Americas wing by artist Warren Prosperi". artfixdaily.com. 2012-06-28. Retrieved 2022-03-02.
  12. ^ "Bedside Manner". corinnebotz.com. Retrieved 2022-03-02.
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