Bipolar Disorder: Open Access
Open Access

Bipolar Disorder: An Past - Present Problem of this Century

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Introduction

In antiquity, the mania and melancholia were considered disturbances of the soul [1]. Until the early nineteenth century, no relationship between crises of mania and depression was established. Later, they began to be considered as a single disease, receiving the name of manic-depressive insanity [2]. Although bipolar disorder is not a new medical entity, we can consider that as the 50s and 60s was the era of anxiety attacks and 90s were the years of the Depression, today we live in the era of bipolar disorder. There are two possible reasons for this situation: The first is commercial: patents of many drugs against depression expired with the turn of the century, so that pharmaceutical ran a large psychiatric market. In search of new markets, industry strove to create new needs and new products. They appeared new categories to describe "soft forms" of bipolar disorder, and increased by 2,000% the frequency of diagnosis. The second reason is linked to what [3] defined as liquid modernity: modern man has abandoned the sense of satisfaction and well-being, resulting from the subsequent industrialization to the Second World War and has sought their individual freedom. This freedom has made the man has locked himself more, worrying about what happens around them. This man is immersed in a consumer society, which seeks to satisfy more and faster, because the products offered are fast maturing, and not necessarily in food products. Such is the case of collections of fashion and technology, what is new today will be obsolete tomorrow. This race cannot conclude more than a cycle of dissatisfaction - satisfaction, with the consequent cost of mind. But paradoxically, the human being feels safer than being alone in society, which is losing skills coexistence: only move and expressed with those who consider their own kind. The "do not talk to strangers" it has become a phrase from child protection to adult armor protection. Bipolarity is such a special behavioral disorder with many edges, which some have even raised the possibility that before a disease is considered a gift, because of the large number of great artists who have suffered.

Manic depressive lists "VIP" includes artists such as Virginia Wolf, Balzac, Van Gogh, Proust, Dalí, Goethe, Mark Twain, Tennesee Williams, Tolstoy, Faulkner and many others. Perhaps the genes involved in bipolar disorder are the same as those that predispose to greater creativity. Several families of artists are good example. Not only Ernest Hemingway, who has the unenviable record of five suicides in three generations of artists. In a study by Torrey [4], it was reported that in twins diagnostic concordance is given in 14%, while in the same twins rose to 56%. According [5], while bipolar in the general population do not go from 4% to 6%, but writers climbs to 50% and among artists than 60%. One of the great landmarks of treatment for bipolar disorder occurred when the Australian doctor [6] discovered the action of lithium salts, in the late 1940s to this modern drugs today joined. But beyond the essential drug treatments and psychological therapies with which we now have, the most effective treatment which usually includes the loved ones of the patient as part of the stabilization process and relapse prevention.

References

1. Quétel C. Madness, at the border between soul and body. Clio Med. 1984;19: 159-163.
2. Engstrom EJ. Emil Kraepelin: psychiatry and public affairs in Wilhelmine Germany. Hist Psychiatry. 1991;2: 111-132.
3. Zygmunt B. Liquid Modernity. 2000;4.
4. Orrey E.F. Schizophrenia and Manic-Depressive Disorder: The Biological Roots of Mental Illness as Revealed by a Landmark Study of Identical Twins (senior author), Perseus Books Group. 1995.
5. Akiskal HS, McKinney WT Jr. Depressive disorders: toward a unified hypothesis. Science. 1973;182: 20-29.
6. Mitchell PB, Hadzi-Pavlovic D. John Cade and the discovery of lithium treatment for manic depressive illness. Med J Aust. 1999;171: 262-264.

References

1. Quétel C. Madness, at the border between soul and body. Clio Med. 1984;19: 159-163.
2. Engstrom EJ. Emil Kraepelin: psychiatry and public affairs in Wilhelmine Germany. Hist Psychiatry. 1991;2: 111-132.
3. Orrey E.F. Schizophrenia and Manic-Depressive Disorder: The Biological Roots of Mental Illness as Revealed by a Landmark Study of Identical Twins (senior author), Perseus Books Group. 1995.
4. Akiskal HS, McKinney WT Jr. Depressive disorders: toward a unified hypothesis. Science. 1973;182: 20-29.
5. Mitchell PB, Hadzi-Pavlovic D. John Cade and the discovery of lithium treatment for manic depressive illness. Med J Aust. 1999;171: 262-264.