I have long been a fan of The Hulk, but I had not noticed the incredible wisdom of Dr. David Banner until The Avengers movie made it clear.

In his wisdom about managing rage he grasps the secret to managing depression and mania too. In one brief statement he captured the greatest flaw in the current paradigm about treating bipolar.

Unfortunately, most people missed it because they thought it was just one of the many great jokes in the movie.

I have seen this debate many times over the last ten years and assume it has been going on much longer. I was always afraid to wade into it, but there seems to be a resurgence lately.

It is usually presented in the opposite way – I Am Not Bipolar, I Have Bipolar – which includes the argument that calling someone bipolar is like calling someone cancer.

A recent comment from our http://www.bipolaradvantage.com website prompted a great reply from one of our volunteers. I think he really put it in the Bipolar Advantage perspective.

Exploring the potential of the human mind has been a central fascination for most of my 55 years. I have spent as much as eight hours a day in meditation and lived in a monastic environment for over eight years. One thing I am very sure of is that we are capable of far more than most of us even imagine. This is especially true regarding those of us who are bipolar.

I have spent the last 10 years exploring what we are capable of during the extremes of mania and depression. In the process, I’ve met hundreds of people who’s insights have validated my own experiences.

With the help of experts in various complementary fields, including medicine, psychiatry, sociology, spirituality (what theorists like to call Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual), accelerated learning, and bipolar-specific meditation techniques, I have developed the most advanced system of training available to date for mastering functionality in all intensities of both mania and depression.

My previous article covered the controversy about why people think it is not possible to be hypomanic without losing control. It’s a good backdrop for this article.

There are four steps that lead to hypomanic success:

1. Determine the starting point.
2. Assemble the tools necessary for the task and become proficient at using them.
3. Create a realistic plan.
4. Do the work.

Assessments

Most assessment tools for bipolar disorder are only for making a diagnosis. Rarely does one assess where someone is in terms of their ability to actually handle elevated states. If we are going to succeed at being hypomanic without losing control, we need to assess a number of factors, including intensity, awareness, understanding, functionality, comfort, and what value the person sees in the experience. These criteria need to be gauged at different levels of intensity until you find the one where they are all optimized.

I have discussed bipolar with thousands of people over the last 10 years and would guesstimate that being hypomanic without losing control is the Holy Grail for 75% or 80% of them. Most say their goal is “permanent hypomania and to never be depressed again.” If you ask their parents, though, they will say “I don’t mind him being a little depressed, but could you make the mania and deep depression go away forever?”

There is good reason for the discrepancy between parents and bipolars. Bipolar people may like being manic, but their behaviors are so often out-of-control that they become a problem for those around them. Bipolars and non-bipolars alike are justifiably afraid of mania because of past history with manic episodes.

It is commonly believed that it is impossible to even be hypomanic without rapidly escalating to an out-of-control state. The belief is so prevalent that the standard of care for mania according to the National Institute of Mental Health is to make it go away entirely.

On the other hand, there are many people who advocate that bipolar is a dangerous gift. Some take it too far and say we should allow all states no matter the consequences. While I fully agree with the dangerous gift idea, we must learn to take responsibility for our states and keep them from getting to places that we cannot control.

You cannot fully understand bipolar until you see the whole picture. This video shows the pieces that are missing in most descriptions. For those of you who have seen the video along with the article “The Shocking Truth About Recovery From Bipolar Disorder” you can skip forward in this video to about 3:15.

The first few minutes repeat the study by the National Institute of Mental Health so those who have not seen the previous video can understand the context. The video is part of a much longer video available at http://www.bipolaradvantage.com as a part of the free online concepts course.

© http://jonathanwallacestudio.com/

My ankle was broken during a hockey game when I was sixteen. The pain was so intense that by the time I got to the hospital an hour later I couldn’t bear it any longer.

If the doctor had given me a choice between suffering from the pain or cutting my leg off at the knee I would have chosen the amputation. I would still be paying for the mistake if he told me the best evidence calls for amputation and gave me no other option other than suffering for the rest of my life.

This sounds absurd. But, what if the pain was in my head? According to a recent article in the BBC News Magazine (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15629160), they did something even worse in the 1950s – they amputated part of people’s brains.

They lobotomized people with depression and bipolar (and other issues) because it was the best evidence-based treatment at the time. From the article, “But from the mid-1950s, it rapidly fell out of favour, partly because of poor results and partly because of the introduction of the first wave of effective psychiatric drugs.” Chemical lobotomies became the evidence-based treatment of the day.

Today’s evidence-based treatments are so much more humane. Or are they? The tools are more refined, but the goal of treatment is the same: cut off the part that is broken. We are no longer poking ice picks into people’s eye sockets, but are still trying to accomplish similar outcomes.

This video It explains the three stages of bipolar disorder: Crisis, Managed, and Recovery. It reveals the results of an important recent study by the National Institute of Mental Health that you will find shocking. There are many who wish the study would remain buried, but as they say, “The cat is out of the bag now!” Be sure to check it out and share your comments.

When my first book The Bipolar Advantage came out, I almost made a version of it replacing my name with Steve Jobs to send to him. The two of us looked so alike at the time that even Apple employees would come up to me and ask if I was a Steve when I dressed like him.

I have heard many people postulate that Steve is bipolar, so I thought the stunt would get his attention. The book cover was easy for people to mistake as him and with his name on it the legal team would be wondering what it was about. The crazy idea was that they would show it to him and he would contact me because of it. He has been a hero to me and at the time I was obsessed like so many with finding examples of famous people who were bipolar.

The recent announcement that Steve Jobs is stepping down reminded me of my old fantasy. Back then I was convinced that his success was a result of being bipolar and it was proof that we have advantage, which is partly why I named the book The Bipolar Advantage. He may be bipolar, but the fantasy really says more about where I was at the time than anything else. Like so many others, I needed to find things that made up for the horrors of the condition. If we could just survive all of the terrible things about mania and depression, perhaps we could gain something from having been through it.

In recent months, discussions about the boom and bust cycles of our economy going back to the Great Depression have been the focus of many news stories. During boom cycles, too many of us experience periods of inflated feelings of power or delusions of grandeur, characterized by excessive risk taking and out of control spending. During bust cycles, many of us experience periods of indecisiveness, black and white thinking, loss of energy and fatigue, even feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts. These reactions are classic symptoms of bipolar disorder.

Companies can and do prosper during times of economic turmoil. What do GE, Disney, HP, Microsoft, and Apple have in common? They were all startups during steep declines in the U.S. economy. GE started during the panic of 1873, Disney started during the recession of 1923-24, HP began during the Great Depression, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft during the recession of 1975. Even today, while the economy is in the worst down period since the Great Depression, Apple is thriving. All these companies realized that they had an advantage by adopting a different mindset, a different way of seeing the crisis. Instead of succumbing to the situation, they saw it as an opportunity to innovate and grow.