Part A: Symptoms and Diagnoses Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir, An Unquiet Mind, is a clinical and personal perspective on Bipolar I Disorder. As a psychiatrist, Dr. Jamison brings an unparalleled perspective to the manic-depressive memoir shelf. She’s able to cut deep into the subject with professionalism, meaningful diction, care, compassion, and most important of all—true life experience. Raised in a military family with a history of mental illness, Jamison began displaying symptoms of bipolar disorder when she was just a senior in high school (Jamison, 1996). She had her first attack of manic-depressive illness that caused her mind to spiral out of control. These experiences escalated during her undergraduate years and by the time Jamison
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To be diagnosed with bipolar disorder the patient must meet the following criteria for manic episodes, which can be broken down into four categories. Category A explains the idea of the patient experiencing a distinct period of irritable mood, an abnormal increase of goal-directed activity lasting at least one week as well as present almost every day (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Next, Category B further highlights the mood disturbances and increased energy by requiring at least three out of seven symptoms such as a decreased need for sleep, extremely talkative, excessive involvement, distractibility, or even inflated self-esteem to be shown to represent a noticeable change in …show more content…
In view of theories of the development of bipolar disorder, there are common biological and psychological factors. Focusing on biological theories through genetics, one can see that the disorder is highly heritable. First-degree relatives of people with bipolar disorder have a 5-10x risk of receiving the mood disorder (Lin, 2016). On the other hand, the mood disorder is even more retrievable if they fall under the category of identical twins. Other biological theories revolve around the brain and its neurotransmitters, for example, within the ventral striatum people with bipolar disorder tend to have a sensitivity to reward cues (Lin, 2016). This allows them to be much more reactive or sensitive to things as well as seek out immediate gratification rather than pay attention to long-term consequences. Such behavior may be due to the dysregulated dopamine system found within their neurotransmitters. In relation, the psychological theories focus on the idea of rewarding as well but also punishment and stress. Through these theories they have allowed patients to go through certain tasks such as “pretend gambling”. In this task patients are compared to regular people, receiving a bad deck, which won’t allow them to win, or a regular deck. The stressors provided change their goal-oriented
To be diagnosed with bipolar disorder the patient must meet the following criteria for manic episodes, which can be broken down into four categories. Category A explains the idea of the patient experiencing a distinct period of irritable mood, an abnormal increase of goal-directed activity lasting at least one week as well as present almost every day (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Next, Category B further highlights the mood disturbances and increased energy by requiring at least three out of seven symptoms such as a decreased need for sleep, extremely talkative, excessive involvement, distractibility, or even inflated self-esteem to be shown to represent a noticeable change in …show more content…
In view of theories of the development of bipolar disorder, there are common biological and psychological factors. Focusing on biological theories through genetics, one can see that the disorder is highly heritable. First-degree relatives of people with bipolar disorder have a 5-10x risk of receiving the mood disorder (Lin, 2016). On the other hand, the mood disorder is even more retrievable if they fall under the category of identical twins. Other biological theories revolve around the brain and its neurotransmitters, for example, within the ventral striatum people with bipolar disorder tend to have a sensitivity to reward cues (Lin, 2016). This allows them to be much more reactive or sensitive to things as well as seek out immediate gratification rather than pay attention to long-term consequences. Such behavior may be due to the dysregulated dopamine system found within their neurotransmitters. In relation, the psychological theories focus on the idea of rewarding as well but also punishment and stress. Through these theories they have allowed patients to go through certain tasks such as “pretend gambling”. In this task patients are compared to regular people, receiving a bad deck, which won’t allow them to win, or a regular deck. The stressors provided change their goal-oriented