Solution

This is the answer:

1. is ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (considered a genius.) Who spent decades in mental hospitals. Before he died at 60 in 1950! (incidentally he died on April 8th which by some traditions is considered Buddha´s birthday.)
2. is the first patient in psychoanalysis ever, Bertha Pappenheim. She who created the "talking cure"! (not a patient of Freud. But of his mentor Josef Breuer. Freud simply pinched the whole concept.)
3. is Eugene Bleuler. The psychiatrist who invented the term "schizophrenia". A hundred years ago! And. He treated Nijinsky.
4. is author Janet Frame. Who were seconds from being lobotomized. But was saved because of her praised début as a writer! (if you have seen the film "An Angel at my Table" you know.)