I’m taking an informal poll on our Facebook Page about the usefulness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Please weigh in there or add your comments here about your experience with CBT and whether your found it worthwhile, a total waste of time, or something in between.
Shortly after bipolar disorder invaded our home in 1999, a series of marriage counselors encouraged me to learn to speak in “I” statements. That was the advice I got from NAMI’s 12-week Family-to-Family course, too.
My initial reaction was, “Great, not only am I a lousy husband, but now I can’t even speak properly!” We had had 15 years of connubial bliss, relatively speaking, before the fireworks started, and I wasn’t doing anything different, so how could this inability to communicate suddenly be my fault?! In short, I was very resistant to the idea.
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We recently updated our book, Bipolar Disorder For Dummies, to create a second edition and took the opportunity to make some significant changes. The first few chapters will be familiar to anyone who has read the first edition, although we revised those chapters, as well, to bring them up to date.
In developing the new edition, we tried to focus chapters on specific issues that people with bipolar disorder and their loved ones often have to deal with, such as a reluctance to take medications, and specific skill sets that anyone who is living with bipolar disorder can benefit from, such as communication and problem-solving.
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October 15, 2012, researchers at Kings College in London published a study in the journal Biological Psychiatry, entitled “Replication study and meta-analysis in European samples supports association of the 3p21.1 locus with bipolar disorder” Biological Psychiatry. 2012 Oct 15;72(8):645-50. Vassos E, et al.) This study replicates earlier findings that connect changes at a particular gene region on chromosome 3p21.1 to bipolar disorder.
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I recently came across an article about a Chicago doctor who claims to be able to cure PTSD through an injection — a procedure referred to as stellate-ganglion block (SGB). After poking around a little, I discovered that this is old news. Back in December, 2011, Katie Drummond published an excellent article about it in Wired magazine entitled “Navy Gives Neck Injections A Shot At Curing PTSD.”
Granted, this is off-topic on a bipolar blog, but I think any research that points to a cure for a mental illness is worth noting.
Doctor with injection photo available from Shutterstock
The Fall edition of the NAMI Advocate (2012) contains an interesting article by NAMI Communications Coordinator Brendan McLean entitled “The Hope for Mental Illness Research: Dr. Tom Insel Shares the Latest Data at NAMI Convention.” But it wasn’t the discussion about research that piqued my interest. Instead, it was what Dr. Insel said about stigma and the importance of engaging the family in the recovery process.
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In the September issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers report a series of studies that suggest a strong association between one particular genetic variation and manic symptoms. (Studies in humans and mice implicate neurocan in the etiology of mania. Miró X, Meier S, Dreisow ML, Frank J, Strohmaier J, Breuer R, Schmäl C, Albayram O, Pardo-Olmedilla MT, Mühleisen TW, Degenhardt FA, Mattheisen M, Reinhard I, Bilkei-Gorzo A, Cichon S, Seidenbecher C, Rietschel M, Nöthen MM, Zimmer A. Am J Psychiatry, 2012 Sep 1;169(9):982-90.)
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A few weeks ago, my wife took too much lithium. She had had missed a few days of taking her lithium and decided to correct the problem by doubling her dose for a few days. As you might know or have surmised, that’s a really bad idea. The difference between a therapeutic and toxic level of lithium is quite small.
Symptoms of lithium toxicity include the following:
If you suspect that you may have taken too much lithium, stop taking the lithium and do one of the following:
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If the human brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn’t.
–Emerson M. Pugh as quoted by George E. Pugh, The Biological Origin of Human Values, 1977
In the mental health community, we often find ourselves wringing our hands when our loved ones fall victim to a flawed system. Too often, I hear of stories from family members who do everything right and have everything turn out all wrong.
They take their loved one to the emergency room in a psychiatric crisis, and three hours later, the patient calms down and is released with no follow-up care in place. They contact their Community Mental Health Center only to be told that they need to contact an attorney, instead. They call around to psychiatric facilities and find out that no beds are available.
They call 911, and the police show up, arrest their loved one and file criminal charges.
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Site last updated: 18 May 2013
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