Mood disorders--new definitions, treatment directions, and understanding.

T he is sue of The Ca na dian Jour nal of Psy chi a try that you have just opened is for the first time al most com pletely ded i cated to mood dis or ders—not sur pris ingly, per haps, because mood dis or ders have be come a ma jor chal lenge and inter est for both the prac tis ing cli ni cian and the ac a demic re searcher. An in creased life time risk for mood dis or ders has been reported for some time: with the def i ni tion of bi po lar dis or der (BD) ex panded into a " spec trum, " 5% to 8% of the pop u la tion may be af fected (1), and ma jor de pres sion will shortly be com-pet ing for first place as the lead ing cause of dis abil ity (2). In-creas ingly at tracted to this do main, the phar ma ceu ti cal in dus try con tin ues to pro vide new pu ta tive mood sta bi liz ers and an ti de pres sants. This is sue's 2 " In Re view " ar ti cles of fer an over view of the most timely con cerns in re gard to BDs. ad dress 2 very pressing prob lems in the man age ment of BDs: misdiagnosis and the ef fec tive treat ment of bi po lar de pres sion. Sys tem atically us ing their own data, they an a lyze the rea son for the widespread underdiagnosing of BDs and iden tify the fact that both cli ni cians and pa tients fail to rec og nize im por tant warn ings of bi po lar ity. In volving a fam ily mem ber or third par ties may help here, but it is also im por tant to give greater weight to family his tory and an ti de pres sant-induced manic symp-toms—fea tures the au thors stress in their pro posed def i ni tion of " bi po lar spec trum dis or der. " Fred Goodwin, the au thor of an au thor i ta tive text book, Manic-Depressive Ill ness (3), has taken a ma jor ini tia tive in iden ti fy ing the nec es sary im prove-ments in di ag no sis and …