Personal stories from sufferers of bipolar disorder reveal what it's like on the inside. Their inspiring accounts and wise advice are accompanied by tips from psychiatrists for managing this difficult condition successfully.

Offers a guide to the nature of bipolar disorder, discussing symptoms, treatment, and the factors that complicate its diagnosis.

Living with Bipolar Disorder is designed to help patients and their families develop the skills they need to be good consumers of treatment and to become expert partners in the management of this challenging disorder. Drawing on research documenting the strength of combining drug treatments with behavioral interventions for fighting bipolar disorder, the authors of this book take a skill-based, family-and-friends approach to managing the ups and downs commonly experienced with bipolar disorder. Readers will learn how to better recognize mood shifts before they happen, minimize their impact, and move on with their lives. Family members will learn how to recognize potential problems, provide encouragement, practice new coping skills, and understand what a loved one is going through. Living with Bipolar Disorder provides worksheets and forms to help readers reinforce skills and practices learned in therapy, as well as useful information about the details of living with bipolar disorder, advice on the best ways to avoid relapses, and strategies for anticipating problems. In this new edition, the authors have expanded the text to reflect the newest advances in research on the management of bipolar disorder, adding the latest in drug information, advice on selecting a therapist, a discussion of the challenges of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood with bipolar, managing stress, improving relationship and communication skills both with the family and with one's clinician, and more. Living with Bipolar Disorder offers a wealth of effective strategies to reduce the likelihood of episodes of depression or mania and maximize the enjoyment of life.

This workbook delivers a hands-on resource, with a variety of tools that enable readers to recognize the early warning signs of an oncoming episode, develop plans for withstanding the seductive pull of manic episodes, and escape the paralysis of depression.

Make the most of your creative and intellectual gifts by overcoming the unique challenges they bring with this guide by the author of Natural Psychology. Many smart and creative people experience unique challenges as a result of their valuable gifts. These can range from anxiety and over-thinking to mania, depression, and despair. In Why Smart People Hurt, creativity coach Dr. Eric Maisel pinpoints these often-devastating challenges and offers solutions based on the groundbreaking principles and practices of natural psychology. Are you still searching for meaning after all these years? Many smart people struggle with reaching for or maintaining success because, after all of the work they put into attaining it, it still seems meaningless. In Why Smart people Hurt, Dr. Maisel will teach you how to stop searching for meaning and create it for yourself. In Why Smart People Hurt, you will find: · Evidence that you are not alone in your struggles · Strategies for coping with a brain that goes into overdrive at the drop of a hat · Questions that will help you create your own personal roadmap to a calm and meaningful life

Did you know that 5.7 million adult Americans are affected by Bipolar Disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health? 69% are often misdiagnosed for 10 years or longer. And less than 2/3 of US adults can correctly define Bipolar and what it looks like. So now you have been diagnosed with this scary, practically unidentifiable, lifelong disease that people know very little about. You know it's genetic, so someone in your immediate or extended family has probably had this same problem right? But now, as you were sitting there, listening to your doctor deliver the news you realized 2 things. 1) Suddenly life makes a little more sense. Suddenly the unforgettable highs and unexplainable lows have some sort of reason behind them other than "that was just how you were that day". 2) Sure, you've heard the term thrown around and you know there are pills involved, but that's it. You would be incredibly lucky if you had someone with Bipolar help you begin to identify it in your own life. Unfortunately, not all of us have that, and often times a general Doctor won't know a lot about it. It can be scary coming home with a diagnosis and a bottle of pills. But, there is hope at the end of the tunnel. With the help of this journal, you can begin to take control of your life again and learn to live peacefully and happily with your quirky personality.Track your goals, daily moods, and symptoms associated with Bipolar (I. & I.I.), Depression, and Anxiety in this 3-month JOURNAL. It is a great way to document your mental health and goals to share with your doctor to guarantee the best care. Set and track your goals in a 3-month time frame. Practice weekly reflection of your mood and goals. Quick daily morning and evening check-ins and reflection of your day. Track your healthy daily habits and self-care. Weekly and Daily To-Do lists. This journal is for you if you have a mood disorder and you want to take control of it. Start mastering your condition today by learning about it, identifying it, and learning how to react appropriately. In this journal you can record important medical and mental health information to share with your doctor, therapist, friends, or family so that you can receive the best care when it comes to your mental health. Sharing your current state with your support system is vital and this journal is the perfect place to keep everything together and reflect on your emotional state. While keeping your bipolar or mood disorder in-check is important, it isn't life's top priority; rather just another challenge to overcome, so this journal is designed to track your mood in association with your goals. Life doesn't stop and end with Bipolar, rather this is just the first step in mastering it. This journal is not for you if you are looking for a weekly and monthly planner calendar. This journal is not for you if you are not willing to put pen to paper and be open and creative. This journal is not for you if you don't want to set goals for yourself. This journal is for someone who wants to understand their condition and get better. To find the right balance of medication, therapy, personal development, career development, relationship improvement, and self-education. The best way to master Bipolar, Depression, Anxiety, and other related mood disorders is by learning about it, recognizing it, doing something about it, and reflecting on it. Here's to mastering Bipolar one day at a time!

A veteran clinical psychologist exposes why doctors, teachers, and parents incorrectly diagnose healthy American children with serious psychiatric conditions. In recent years there has been an alarming rise in the number of American children and youth assigned a mental health diagnosis. Current data from the Centers for Disease Control reveal a 41 percent increase in rates of ADHD diagnoses over the past decade and a forty-fold spike in bipolar disorder diagnoses. Similarly, diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder, once considered, has increased by 78 percent since 2002. Dr. Enrico Gnaulati, a clinical psychologist specializing in childhood and adolescent therapy and assessment, has witnessed firsthand the push to diagnose these disorders in youngsters. Drawing both on his own clinical experience and on cutting-edge research, with Back to Normal he has written the definitive account of why our kids are being dramatically overdiagnosed—and how parents and professionals can distinguish between true psychiatric disorders and normal childhood reactions to stressful life situations. Gnaulati begins with the complex web of factors that have led to our current crisis. These include questionable education and training practices that cloud mental health professionals’ ability to distinguish normal from abnormal behavior in children, monetary incentives favoring prescriptions, check-list diagnosing, and high-stakes testing in schools. We’ve also developed an increasingly casual attitude about labeling kids and putting them on psychiatric drugs. So how do we differentiate between a child with, say, Asperger’s syndrome and a child who is simply introverted, brainy, and single-minded? As Gnaulati notes, many of the symptoms associated with these disorders are similar to everyday childhood behaviors. In the second half of the book Gnaulati tells detailed stories of wrongly diagnosed kids, providing parents and others with information about the developmental, temperamental, and environmentally driven symptoms that to a casual or untrained eye can mimic a psychiatric disorder. These stories also reveal how nonmedical interventions, whether in the therapist’s office or through changes made at home, can help children. Back to Normal reminds us of the normalcy of children’s seemingly abnormal behavior. It will give parents of struggling children hope, perspective, and direction. And it will make everyone who deals with children question the changes in our society that have contributed to the astonishing increase in childhood psychiatric diagnoses.