Bipolar disorder
Trista Wood
National Park Community College
Abstract
This paper explores people with bipolar disorder. Where does it come from? How does it affect people? What are the treatments? These are a few of the questions that Robert L. Leahy discusses in his article, Bipolar Disorder: Causes, Contexts, and Treatments.
Bipolar Disorder
Also known as manic-depressive disorders, bipolar disorder is defined as a psychological state in which a person experiences a mood disorder causing radical alterations in their moods which can vary from manic highs to depressive lows. Elevated levels of either manic and depression are some of the common experiences that are encountered by a person suffering from this disorder. The term “bipolar disorder” already shows it is not this is a common disease. Bipolar disorder afflicts 3 to 5 % of the population. The disease may be individually very different and take different courses for each person affected. Always, however, the disease is usually in stages or episodes in which a certain mood overrules.
In the United States over two million people are diagnosed with the psychological problem of bipolar disorder. One of the major reasons behind the unprecedented rise of people suffering from the disorder is contributed by the complications that hinder correct and accurate diagnosis of the disease. It is mainly because of the delay in the diagnostic process that the number of people suffering from the disorder has increased extraordinarily. In order to carefully understand bipolar disorder it is important to know that there are actually two prominent categories namely Bipolar I (mania) and Bipolar II (hypomania). The category I disorder is basically characterized by high depressive manic cycles. A person experiencing this disorder shows signs and feelings of self-importance, talkativeness, increased socialization and impulsiveness. Usually it has also been observed that people suffering from this specific category...