Four Things that Counselors Don't Know About Bipolar Disorder

This video attempts to answer the question: Can I discuss a few characteristics of bipolar disorder that most mental health clinicians wouldn't know. I titled this video “four things counselors don't know about bipolar disorder,” and when I use the word counselor here, I'm not using it in the professional identity sense, but rather in a general sense - so professional counselors, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, or anyone who can use psychotherapy to treat mental health symptoms. This video is in no way a criticism of the mental health professions, but rather just interesting facts about bipolar disorder that I think most mental health clinicians and most individuals in the general public wouldn't be aware of.

The first thing would be that hypomania appears in both Bipolar I Disorder and Bipolar II Disorder. A lot of times because of the way the criteria are written, counselors think that if somebody has Bipolar I Disorder they only have manic episodes, but actually they could also have hypomanic episodes.

The second thing that most counselors wouldn't know about bipolar disorder I call this the one-way street phenomenon of bipolar disorder. As long as someone has been correctly diagnosed, if they move to Bipolar I Disorder from Bipolar II Disorder or MDD, they can't move back to the diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder Or MDD.

The third thing that most counselors would not know about bipolar disorder deals with the construct of rapid cycling. A number of mental health clinicians know that rapid cycling exists, but don't really understand all the aspects of it, ultra rapid cycling and ultradian rapid cycling.

The fourth thing that most counselors don’t know about bipolar disorder this deals with a personality disorder called borderline personality disorder. The item here is that bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder can be comorbid.