OBJECTIVE Self-mutilation has traditionally been associated with borderline personality disorder, and seldom examined separately from suicide attempts. Clinical experience suggests that self-mutilation is common in bipolar disorder. METHODS A family study was conducted on the molecular genetics of depression and personality, in which the proband had been treated for depression. All probands a...

J Clin Psychiatry 2015;76(2):e222–e223 (doi:10.4088/JCP.14com09639). © Copyright 2015 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc. O 40 years ago, clinical observations generated proposals for a distinction among mood-disordered patients between those who experience mania in the course of their illness and those who experience only hypomania.1 Concerns that this distinction could not be made reliably de...

OBJECTIVES There are currently no accepted diagnostic criteria for bipolar depression for either research or clinical purposes. This paper aimed to develop recommendations for diagnostic criteria for bipolar I depression. METHODS Studies on the clinical characteristics of bipolar and unipolar depression were reviewed. To identify relevant papers, literature searches using PubMed and Medline w...

BACKGROUND Bipolar Affective Disorder is frequently under-diagnosed and misdiagnosed, particularly as unipolar depression. This has serious implications on treatment and outcome of the condition. A community mental health team (CMHT) in Bedford, United Kingdom, has therefore reassessed patients to examine whether it is possible to increase the sensitivity of diagnosis of bipolar affective disor...

Atypical antipsychotics have become a widely utilized component of the bipolar disorder treatment armamentarium, with approximately 45% of bipolar patients prescribed atypicals. Over the last decade all atypical drugs except for clozapine have received a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bipolar indication. In October 2008, the FDA approved quetiapine XR monotherapy for the treatment of acute ...

This study investigated the possibility that, in remitted bipolar I affective disorder, dysfunctional attitudes are mood-state dependent. Participants were 120 individuals with remitted bipolar I disorder, remitted unipolar depression, or no history of affective disorder. The Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS; Weissman, 1979) was completed before and after positive or negative mood challenge. ...

Carbamazepine (CBZ) has long been a therapeutic option for bipolar disorder. Carbamazepine extended-release capsules (CBZ-ERC) are a recent formulation of CBZ approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2004 for the treatment of acute manic and mixed episodes associated with bipolar I disorder. This new formulation was developed to improve dosing convenience and decrease daily fluctuatio...

Sir: Bipolar II disorder is a valid and reliable diagnosis and its prevalence in society is higher than was once assumed. Considering the fact that the main clinical presentation of bipolar II disorder is composed of depressive symptoms and the fact that the retrospective diagnosis of episodes of hypomania is often difficult, there has been an increased concern about the underdiagnosis of bipol...

Sir: Bipolar II disorder is a valid and reliable diagnosis and its prevalence in society is higher than was once assumed. Considering the fact that the main clinical presentation of bipolar II disorder is composed of depressive symptoms and the fact that the retrospective diagnosis of episodes of hypomania is often difficult, there has been an increased concern about the underdiagnosis of bipol...

Ninety-five years after Kretschmer’s original publication the concept of somatotype in psychiatry remains controversial. The aim of the current study was to compare the somatotype of patients with bipolar I disorder and sex-matched mentally healthy controls using an objective method of somatotyping and predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. 67 bipolar I patients (26 males, 41 females) and...