Bi-Polar Disorder – Creative Genius?

The term bi-polar disorder seems to have entered everyday language.  The term is used by many people commenting on someone else’s mercurial and changeable mood patterns and behaviour.  This doesn’t mean people who behave in highly changeable ways – exhilarated and intensively creative one minute and depressed and despairing the next, would be labelled with the medical term Bipolar Disorder.   Everyday stresses, burnout and overload lead to mood swings which are understandable and changes in one’s lifestyle can make enormously positively improvements.

Bipolar disorder used to be called Manic Depression by the medical profession.  Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder characterised by episodes of mania and depression.  It is different from mood swings – it makes people close to them bewildered and shocked by such extreme changes that they often feel they don’t understand the person at all.  One key factor reported is that when the person is in the Manic Phase, they can demonstrate extreme creative genius or entrepreneurial abilities.  This doesn’t mean people with these qualities are bipolar – but it does mean that people who are labelled as bipolar often appear to access creative abilities within themselves when they are in the mania stage.  The challenge they face is that they can burn themselves out through this process and the resultant depressive stage can be enormously debilitating.

If you are concerned that you or someone you know might be acting in intensively creative ways where ‘there is no stopping them’ (and you fear for their physical and psychological health), it is wise to seek professional help to ascertain how to deal constructively with this.

Leading a Double Life?

Many of my clients tell me that they feel they are ‘leading a double life‘.  They go to work everyday and whilst they say they enjoy it, they feel agitated and questioning of how little time they have to reflect on what their life is about or get involved in things they once were passionate about – because their time is literally spent in ’surviving’.    Their double life emerges within them in the form of unspoken values, dreams or perspectives, of a life that doesn’t leave them feeling like a robot on a conveyor belt of consumerism and pressures to conform to the demands of modern living.  Anxiety arises as they try to reconcile their responsibilities within the implications of them acting on their desires.

However this shows up in their life, the reality is that the person feels split between the demands of societal or family pressures to be a certain way and internal desires to live authentically in accordance with one’s dreams which for whatever reason, can’t be discussed with people in their life.   If you find yourself in a situation where you feel you are not living in accordance with what is most important to you, it is essential to address what is happening and the implications of making some changes.  To avoid this and not stop living a double life only leads to increased anxiety, destructive behaviour or depression.

Is medication the answer to Depression?

Is medication the answer to alleviating sufferers from the pain of depression?

As a psychologist, people often ask me whether medication should be used solely to treat depression, as a support whilst in therapy or whether it is a ‘band aid’ solution to a longer-term problem? Like any medication, it is aimed at relieving symptoms – there is evidence that it lifts mood and helps chronically depressed individuals make fundamental shifts in everyday functioning, particularly where their depression is so acute that they may not be able to leave the house or even get out of bed.

Psychologists, and clients themselves, also know that it is important to examine the causes of depression – since de-pression is a reaction to life’s events, external circumstances or even self-doubt and inability to live the life one wants. Medicating without assisting an individual in identifying the source of their pain would seem to be irresponsible or even inhumane.

Recent debate in Australia exists between doctors and pharmacists over who should be allowed to own and operate chemists. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has called on the federal government to relax laws so doctors could own pharmacies in, or next to, their general practice. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia says the allowing this would lead to doctors having a conflict of interest. They’d be prescribing drugs and profiting from their sale.

Whatever one’s political beliefs about this, we must not forget the real victims in such a debate. When profit and professional rivalry potentially makes those with power to prescribe anti-depressive medication less objective and impartial in their decisions, then the sufferer of depression stands to lose out. A professional who has to decide between prescribing drugs or referring a person for counseling, would have to be a saint if prescribing counseling alone (if considered optimum) which resulted in them losing income.

So is medication the answer to treating depression? To answer the question, I believe it is important to ensure that a context is created in which the doctor chooses what is best for the patient – not how it impacts on their financial bottom line.