Bipolar Disorder in the United States

Bipolar disorder is one of the top mental disorders that has impacted majority of the united states society. Psychologist know more about bipolar disorder because of so many outbreaks that have occured. According to Monica Ramirez Basco (2000) [b]ipolar I disorder (BPI) is a chronic and severe mental illness characterized by recurrent episodes of major depression and mania (p.287). Depression and mania are two of the main symptoms of bipolar disorder when trying to diagnose. Basco (2000) continues on There must be 3 additional manic symptoms occurring concurrently with a euphoric mood or 4 additional symptoms if the mood is irritable to qualify for a diagnosis of mania (pg.288). Bipolar disorder symptoms can be determined in many ways and can be triggered by many aspects in life Goodwin (2016) , onset can be particularly influenced by the stresses of late adolescence, but presentations occur throughout the lifespan with first episodes of mania (p.661). For bipolar disorder, there are many aspects that could cause the trigger of this disorder. According to Goodwin (2016), the onset and course of the disease are probably influenced by early life trauma, life events and alcohol and other drug use (p.661).

Trauma from the past, a midlife crisis could cause this disease to finally surface and potentially disrupt day - to - day life.This disease can occur at any moment throughout life when it is finally triggered by a significant occurrence in life. Bipolar disorder has changed in the aspect the diagnostic criteria Severus & Bauer (2013) notes, furthermore, in this chapter, there are now separate diagnostic criteria for manic-like phenomena associated with the use of substances (either substances of abuse or prescribed medications) or with medical conditions (p.1). The DSM-5 has modified bipolar disorder, given these changes, (Severus & Bauer 2013) continues on to say, DSM-5 seems to concur with the idea that there has been an under-recognition of bipolar disorders (p.1). Between women and men there is not much of a difference between frequency of mood Difloria & Jones (2013) describe the statistics amongst gender, using the Diagnostic Interview for Psychosis, Morgan et al. (2005) found that lifetime symptom profiles were similar for men and women, with the exception of the item 'dysphoria and depressed mood', which was more frequent in women (84.9%) than men (74.6%) (p.443). Dysphoria and depressed mood are understandable due to the fact that women have periods and other hormones that affect their mood. Whereas men they do not want to be seen as weak so they keep to themselves so there might be more men that are not accounted for due to this social norm. In other cases amongst children it is predominantly identified as Severus & Bauer (2013) reports, The diagnosis is most often assigned to young patients presenting with a (first) major depressive episode (p.1).

This is one thing that bipolar and bipolar II has the most in common is its onset symptom. The origin of bipolar disorder has been relevant for many years Tondo, Vazquez & Baldessarini (2016) discuss how, early descriptions of what is now recognized as bipolar disorder (BD) date to ancient and medieval writers, and others through the 18th century [1, 2] (p.353). Bipolar disorder has been amongst the science of psychology for centuries and now (Tondo et al. 2016) beleived , the current concept of Bipolar Disorder emerged from MDI in the mid-20th century, based primarily on separation of illnesses with manic or hypomanic phases and depressions as well as conditions marked primarily with recurrent major depressive episodes [1, 6-8] (p.353). The topic of bipolar disorder has grown over the years with different phases and conditions to add onto what psychology continues to learn in this era. Sherman (2011) hypothesized, the evolution of an extreme, complex set of adaptations such as bipolar I disorder requires that strong selective pressures be exerted on a small homogeneous population over a long period of time, which in fact describes the circumstances of Neandertal during the Pleistocene (p.114).

Sherman explains how bipolar disorder is a development biological modification when Neanderthals went through the first ice age their your bodies were in distress and triggers the disease. The treatment I chose for bipolar disorder is cognitive-behavior therapy. According to Basco (2000), the cognitive changes include changes in the thinking process as well as the content of these thoughts(p.288). While treating bipolar disorder this would be amongst the transformation that would be occurring while under this treatment. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has benefited bipolar disorder (Basco 2000) compared to those assigned to receive standard clinical care, those in the CBT group were significantly less likely to have significant adherence problems, including being less likely to terminate lithium against medical advice (p.290). Cognitive-behavioral therapy has improved according to Basco (2000) they showed significant increases in time to first recurrence of mania (65 vs. 17 weeks) in those participating in the CBT intervention compared to subjects in the control group as well as a reduction in the number of manic episodes over an 18-month period (p.290). This treatment has shown in this study to improve the health of people with bipolar disorder as well as control their phases of each stage in this disorder. This will also improve the behavior over a shorter time period compared to others. Goodwin (2016) also suggest, naturalistic data strongly supplement data from clinical trials in supporting efficacy for lithium, valproate, carbamazepine and dopamine antagonists/partial agonists in long-term treatment (p.663). These supplements are supported to be used for long-term use.

I chose the cognitive theory to help support and treat this bipolar disorder the most. The cognitive theory I believe could aid this disease because it is potentially working from the inside out. I took into consideration an article written by Windy Dydren (2011) about Albert Ellis and cognitive behavioral therapy. In the article Dryden (2011) explain how rational emotional behavioral therapy which is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy is broken down into mental thought, it follows from this that the negative emotions that stem from irrational beliefs (known as unhealthy negative emotions or UNEs) are qualitatively different from those that stem from rational beliefs (known as healthy negative emotions or HNEs) (p.213). Bipolar disorder involves an abundance of emotions that are positive and negative Dryden (2011) notes, other approaches to CBT tend to advocate a quantitative theory of emotions where the goal of intervention is to reduce the intensity of negative emotions and where no distinction is clearly made between UNEs and HNEs (p.213).

Cognitive behavioral therapy in the aspect of the cognitive perspective can help understand what triggers people with bipolar disorders thoughts, and how we can restrain or decrease the unhealthy negative feelings according to Ellis. I think the cognitive theory is reteaching Jean Piaget's cognitive theory Carey, Zaitchik, & Bascandziev (2015) explain, Piaget's body of work gave the field dozens of robust phenomena that suggest incommensurabilities, phenomena that captured the field's attention because children are locked into patterns of judgment that lead them to internal contradictions and are incoherent from the point of view of the later (adult) conceptual system (p.40) The habits you have as a child could continue on into adulthood which could bring on the symptoms of bipolar because of repressed emotion. This also leads to the mechanism we use as children carry on into adulthood Carey et al. (2015) explains Piaget offered, insights from cognitive science, including history and philosophy of science, have allowed us to go well beyond equilibration of assimilation and accommodation as what we can say about the learning mechanisms underlying the construction of the adult conceptual repertoire (p.41). The bridge between child and adult cares many stages of learning which I think people with bipolar should learn to cope with negative thought and attitudes towards themselves. Bipolar disorder continues to develop and define itself even more as we research the reasons why it came to be and what we can do to relieve its symptoms.

Cite this page