Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
Open Access

Bipolar Disorder and its Symptoms

Sameh Rahma^{* *}Correspondence: Sameh Rahma, Department of Psychology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, Email:

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Description

Bipolar disorder which is previously called as manic depression is a brain condition that alters a person's mood, energy, and their ability to work, which results in severe mood fluctuations, including mania or hypomania (emotional highs) and lows (depression). When the person experience depression, they could feel sad or hopeless and no longer have interest in most activities. Mania or hypomania (a less severe form of mania) can cause a person to feel euphoric, energized, or abnormally irritable. The ability to think clearly, energy levels, daily activities, judgment, sleep and behaviour can all be affected by these mood changes. Life of the person can be severely disrupted by bipolar disorder, although each person experiences it differently.

Although at some times mood swings are common to most of the people, but for those who are associated with bipolar disorder experience it more severely than the normal ones and even other symptoms also can occur. Some people can also experience psychosis, which can include delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia. Mood swing episodes can happen infrequently or repeatedly each year. While the majority of people will experience certain emotional symptoms in between episodes, some people might not experience them. Although bipolar disorder is a lifelong diagnosis, by following the treatment the person can control their mood swings and other symptoms.

In majority of cases, psychological counseling (psychotherapy) and drugs are used to treat bipolar disorder. Most people with bipolar disorder also have intervals of neutral mood, they can live full and productive lives when properly treated. Even those who do not have bipolar disorder go through mood swings, meanwhile those mood swings, usually only last for few hours than days. However, these changes typically do not match with the significant degree of behaviour change or difficulties adjusting to daily activities and social interactions that bipolar disorder patient’s exhibit during mood episodes.

Although being two different types of events, hypomania and mania share the same symptoms. Mania is much more extreme than hypomania and results in more obvious issues with relationships, employment, school, and social activities. A psychotic break (psychosis) brought on by mania may also require hospitalization.

A manic episode is a period of at least one week during which a person is more vibrant than usual, and is extremely elated or agitated most of the time, and exhibits at least three of the following behavioural changes: Reduced need for sleep (such as feeling attentive despite having significantly less sleep than normal), faster speech, rapid change in thoughts or topics while speaking, inattentiveness, increased activity, and an increase in risky behaviour. These actions must be obvious to friends and family members and they must be the change in the person's typical behaviour. The symptoms of this condition must be severe enough to interfere with daily obligations related to job, family, and/or social life. A person experiencing manic episode symptoms frequently needs hospital care to stay unaffected.

Hypomanic episode which shows less intense manic symptoms than manic episode, just remain for four days straight than a week. The significant difficulties in daily life functioning that manic episodes frequently bring are not seen in hypomanic symptoms.

Conclusion

A major depressive episode lasts for a minimum period of two weeks at least. It occurs when a person exhibits at least five of the mentioned symptoms (including at least one of the initial two symptoms) they are, intense depression or hopelessness, a lack of interest in once-enjoyed activities, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, fatigue, irregular sleep patterns, irregular eating patterns, restlessness or slurred speech, difficulty in concentration, and recurrent thoughts of suicide or death.