Vincent van Gogh is on my mind again these days. Those Don McLean lyrics—“Starry, starry night, Paint your palette blue and grey, Look out on a summer’s day, With eyes that know the darkness in my soul”—are playing over and over again in my head. (1) I have always loved van Gogh’s artwork—who isn’t moved by the sadness of Old Man in Sorrow, the humility of The Potato Eaters, the swirling shades of blue in Starry Night, or the striking beauty of his Irises—and, as a psychologist, I’ve long been intrigued by what demons may have plagued him. A few years back, in an Abnormal Psychology class I was teaching, I used van Gogh as a vehicle for studying the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); there was no shortage of literature about van Gogh’s troubled 37 years of life and my students, like others, provided an impressive array of possible psychiatric diagnoses. Who knows why someone—known only through books and artwork—invades your thoughts. But in van Gogh’s case, I trace his recent emergence back to several factors: A highly anticipated exhibition, Van Gogh Up Close, has just opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (February 1 – [...]