Bipolar Disorder: A Brief Analysis

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This article is about a person with bipolar disorder her name is Jamie Lowe. She was sent to an institution at the age of 17. She describes her episodes that are mostly manic. This gives the readers a taste of what it’s like to have a psychological disorder. Finally, after being too tired to fight the nurses, she accepts her medication, lithium, a mood stabilizer. It made her better, curbing her manic episodes. These pills made her functional. This type of treatment is called a biological treatment. The author goes on to discuss the history of lithium. John Cade was the first to discover the psychological use of lithium. Cade was the first psychologist to shift from the Freudian explanation for a more biological perspective. In 2000, Jamie …show more content…
It typically focuses on the brain or brain anatomy. This was used to treat Jamie because the mood stabilizer lithium was used. Which is also helps with anxiety and depression, which can occur with bipolar disorders. However, lithium is poisonous. The article gives some background information on the history of this drug. John Cade was the person that developed this treatment. In 1947, Cade first proposed that mental illness included body and should be treated with medication. Talk therapy wasn’t enough. According to the notes, drug therapy didn’t come around until the 1950s. This pinpointed the modern age of medicine and changed the outlook for various mental disorders. Today, the biological treatment is the most common in the United States. Although it wasn’t until the 1970s that lithium as a medication was allowed. As more medications were approved the more popular the biological model became. According to the biological model, bipolar disorder is caused because of low levels of serotonin and either high or low levels of norepinephrine. Since Jamie had manic episodes she probably has high norepinephrine levels. Norepinephrine and serotonin are neurotransmitters that are inhibitory. Meaning they stop something from occurring. Mania has an effect on the sodium potassium pump. It causes the neurons in the sodium potassium pump to fire too easily. This explains Jamie’s high energy levels even without sleep. This is because the neurons in her brain were rushing in too much and stimulated continuously. Lithium works on the signal in the neuron so the person can function

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