Talk:Bipolar disorder

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The diagnosis section contains the statement "Both within and between individuals with the illness, energy, mood, thought, sleep, and activity are among the continually changing biological markers of the disorder." This is a big stretch of the term biological marker, with is generally used to refer to a molecular or genetic marker that can be tested for physically, say with a blood test or other physical means. Since at this point there are no genetic or chemical markers that are tested to diagnose bipolar disorder, the use of the term is innaccurate and implies a greater biological understanding of the illness than we currently have. A better term here might be simply the word characteristics or physical manifestations. There are also several sentence fragments in the article which noone has bothered to clean up. The highest concordance rate from twin studies given needs a citation. Overall the article is probably not up to the same quality as most Wikipedia articles and considering the importance level it's been given, I'd rate this one more in the class of a C-.

67.142.130.33 20:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)xlarax

Archives Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7

[edit] basic description/summary

This article is missing a basic description/summary of the condition, and seems to just straight into more detailed discussion which assumes prior knowledge -- Lee Carré 23:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I've now rolled the article back to an earlier, and in my opinion better structured, version, as it was as of as of 19:13, 13 September 2006 [1]. Also, I see that the version I rolled back seems to contain substantial amounts of text from other websites, such as [2], against the Wikipedia copyright policy. -- The Anome 23:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ...whether or not they receive adequate treatment?

I have some concerns about this statement: "People suffering from the disorder may be periodically disabled, but many live full and productive lives whether or not they receive adequate treatment." This statement has been chopped around recently till it has reached this state. I'm not so sure that people can live full and productive lives whether or not they receive adequate treatment. It just doesn't make sense to me. --WikiCats 22:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I read this article out of curiousity because I have BPII and this statement struck me as contradicting most of the rest of the article. Besides, how can you say that untreated bipolar sufferers may lead full productive lives (whatever you define that as) when someone who has been diagnosed will, in all likelihood, receive some kind of treatment? If someone has a reference for this, fine, but this contradicts both my personal experience as someone suffering since childhood but not diagnosed until my mid-30's, and everything else I've read about bipolar disorder.Grrrlgeek 21:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the "whether or not they receive adequate treatment" is meant to suggest that bipolars can "live full and productive lives" without resorting to psychiatric treatment (ie. an allusion to the belief that psychiatric treatment fails to satisfy many bipolars). Anarchist42 22:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

But does an "allusion to a belief" belong here? And when I read "treatment" I didn't necessarily think psychiatric; even self-treatment is treatment.Grrrlgeek 03:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Good question. I believe that, in general, psychiatrists do not regard self-treatment as appropriate and claim that they are very successfull in treating bipolar disorder using pharmaceuticals (a claim that is disputed by many patients). The statement in question evolved as the two sides tried to emphasize their opposing beliefs, until a balance was achieved. Anarchist42 19:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

If it refers only to psychiatric treatment it should say so. What I really think is that the sentence is opinion only and has no place in an encyclopedia article, but that is opinion only as well ;}. The article is marked for cleanup anyway so hopefully someone with more experience in these apparently delicate matters will have a chance to work on it.--Grrrlgeek 19:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal Descriptions section

"The following is a quote from a successfully treated individual with bipolar disorder (from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health):"

I think this quote should be replaced because:

1) It starts off as if describing bipolar depression in general and in sensationalist terms too ('manic-depression...incites dreadful behaviours', 'destroys...') and also makes strong scientific claims (says e.g. "it is an illness which is biological") - rather than elucidating a sufferer's personal experience.

2) The quote was selected in some way by the NIMH, which as noted above (by me in a previous incarnation) is a strongly 'biomedical' organisation (even though they removed that term from their website banner shortly after it was highlighted) and it seems likely that they chose a quote that fit with their outlook and aims

3) The link is to a page that appears to be a sort of position statement on bipolar by NIMH and doesn't actually seem to have the quote on it - and no information on who this person was, how NIMH got the quote from them, what 'successful' treatment they were receiving, or anythign to enable validation of any of it

EverSince 16:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a quote from Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind: see [3] for a cite. Jamison is a well known researcher in the field, and is bipolar herself; in this quote, she's referring to her own experience of, and treatment for, bipolar disorder. I can't see anything particularly contentious about her statement about the nature of the disease: the statement that bipolar disorder has biological origins is consistent with all recent research. -- The Anome 12:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying this here and on the page, this was not indicated or linked to previously, and explains the sensationalist (published book) language. It remains the case that the quote was orginally transferred to here because NIMH had included it in their work.

To start again - Kay Redfield Jamison is of course very well-known and respected in this area, but the purpose of this section seems unclear when there are two quotes from one person giving generalised clinical opinions as much as describing a personal experience. I am assuming a section like this, if it is allowed on Wikipedia, should be confined to the latter, and should give a representative range of quotes as far as possible? What about finding a more personal quote from Kay (her medical work could be addressed elsewhere in the article of course)? Some other quotes could be obtained from user-led organisations - I see Bipolar World has a list of personal stories [4] EverSince 17:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I asked about this on the policy page, and I guess user-led org materials wouldn't really be reliable/verifiable enough. When I get time I will try to find reliable published works with quotes from someone diagnosed with bipolar - I hope anyone else can too of course. I do think the first Jamison quote can be replaced by something more balanced, or at the very least, in the interests of NPOV, counterbalanced by an additional view of its nature/etiology etc. EverSince 21:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think that this section adds anything to the article, which is very long and needs a lot of cleaning up. I don't think this is in the style of Wikipedia, I haven't seen "Personal accounts of ..." in other articles, about medical conditions or otherwise; please correct me if I am wrong. I also agree with EverSince, if this section has a place in this article, it should consist of some actual "personal experience" type quotes. It all just seems very out of place, and I'm going to be bold and remove it now. /skagedal^... 21:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this a joke?

"Leading bipolar specialist, Gillian Townley, has researched the effect of the Ferret Rabbit process."

I can't find anything on the web about that, and "ferret rabbit" sounds suspiciously like something someone would consider a joke in an article about bipolar. Anyone got a cite or just confirmation that it's not a lie?--Nyxxxx 03:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I am 99% sure it is not true. There is no web reference for "Gillian Townley" apart from the other pages which have copied wikipedia. Cas Liber 20:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like someone removed it. I didn't want to unless I could be sure it wasn't true. --Nyxxxx 23:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Length of article -removing bipolar in children bit

Bipolar is considered to be pretty rare before late teens. As the article is very long it may be better to move this section. As well there is some pretty controversial (well, more controversial) material in this section. cheers Cas Liber 20:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. More of a summary of the key issues/controversy would seem to suffice in this article EverSince 21:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organization

Does this article seem to change around quite a lot and be relatively disorganized? Currently a lot of points are duplicated in different personal-seeming wording, and the various headings seem quite disparate with an unclear flow. Would it help to establish some kind of agreed basic organization on this talk page? I'm wary of spending time trying to organize the article otherwise, in case it's wasted. The structure of other psych pages would seem to suggest something like:

simple intro/overview
diagnosis (incl. subtypes and comorbidity)
symptoms/features
history
epidemiology (e.g. prevalence)
etiology (causes/influences/models)
treatments and services
self-management/society/recovery
controversies?

Any other suggestions? Just noticed there's been a similar discussion to this already, middle of last year, but seems that it would still be useful to get a basic heading structure clearly listed EverSince 04:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent idea and I'd like to help if I can. Thanks, EverSince. 24.68.236.106 00:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to archive some of this talk page, as quite dense and takes a while to load on a slower connection. Not sure where up to exactly (or perhaps whether to extract just the oldest/least relevant conversations) but I'll have a go soon unless any other suggestions EverSince 11:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please! I think usually the archiving is done chronologically. It would be best to have some description of the major topics discussed at the link to the archive even though not all talk-page archives have that.--Grace E. Dougle 11:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hypomania

"Some do not experience full-blown mania, and will display milder symptoms, known as hypomania." Seeing as hypomania has alreaddy been mentioned twice in the first section, isn't this a bit redundant? --Scorpios 13:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Well this is example of issue raised above EverSince 14:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] added under "medical imaging"

- - Please don't delete again without discussing here first***

Added paragraph:

It's important to note, however, that currently bipolar diagnosis is made solely on the basis of a psychiatrist's judgement. No medical imaging or any other modern technology is able to objectively diagnose any mental illness.

I suggest changing this to the following:

The diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder is made based on the assessment and evaluation of a mental health professional. The assessment may include clinical judgement, various psychological tests, a review of history, and a comparison of presenting symptoms with the DSM criteria. There are no biological tests for this disorder

The words "solely" and "modern" present a slant that isn't particularily neutral. Furthermore, a variety of mental health professionals can diagnosis and the basis for a diagnosis is ususally multi-modal. DPeterson^talk 13:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the suggested rewording. A minor point, we recently seemed to come to a consensus on the schizophrenia talk page that the term "laboratory test" might be best, or personally I think "medical test" is more clear/standard than "biological test." EverSince 18:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Either word is fine with me. I used the word "biological" and not "medical" since a psychiatrist is a medical professional and a psychiatrist might (I'm guessing here since I am not a psychiatrist) say that the procedures used are "medical." DPeterson^talk 22:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] added under "aspects of bipolar disorder"

Iatrogenic (illness caused by medical treatment) bipolar disorder is a relatively common response to standard treatment (SSRI antidepressants and/or electroshock treatment) for unipolar depression. Some feel this danger warrants the addition of mood stabilizers into the drug regime. 24.68.236.106 00:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You will need to have a verifiable citation to support this statement. DPeterson^talk 13:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] added under "heritability"

Added paragraph: Currently, there is no evidence of any kind of pathology (e.g. chemical brain imbalance or structural dysfunction in the brain) underlying this (or indeed, any) psychiatric diagnosis. 24.68.236.106 00:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I can see the sorts of points you're trying to include but these come across to me as POV and unsourced, rather than something balanced and sourced on the the findings re neurotransmitters/neurocognitive funcioning etc, and diagnostic practices.... EverSince 10:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted sections

I have deleted several lines and sections that have had a ^{[citation needed]} or ^{[citation needed]} tag for quite some time. Unless someone can provide a reliable citation to support the statements, please leave them deleted as they are just opinions without appropriate references to support those statements. There are other lines that should also be deleted unless references can be provided to support the contentions. I will remove those at a later date. MarkWood 23:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Sections marked citation needed should be deleted after awhile if no one can find appropriate sources. DPeterson^talk 17:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On the ignorant section about "Bi-Polar Disorder and Creativity."

Contrary to popular belief, disabilities -- of any kind -- do not make people more "creative." Stevie Wonder is not more "sensitive" to sound because he's blind -- he just has on of the finest ears for rhythm and melody in recorded history. Likewise with bi-polar disorder -- even though we have these myths about the "sensitive," "melancholy" artist, bi-polar disorder does NOT make one "more creativity." It is a crippling illness which leads to feelings of worthlessness, apathy, and eventually suicide. bi-polar disorder is not just a few "sad feelings" in someone's "head" -- it is an illness as real and verifiable as cancer -- therefore to attach some kind of 'mystique' to it is completely inexcusable. So, for the self-appointed expert who placed the silly "Depression and creativity" section in the article on bi-polar disorder, I have just this to say: Van Gogh's bi-polar disorder did not cause him to paint the "Starry Night" -- but it did cause him to shoot himself. Think before you post such ignorant garbage on Wikipedia.

Surely the correct way to proceed is not to simply nuke the section. It's a fairly common belief that bipolar disorder is somehow connected to creativity. Now it may very well be hogwash but there have been studies on the subject and there's more than enough reason to keep this section and address the issue. Pending discussion here, I will revert your deletion which, incidentally also added a sentence to the effect that bipolar disorder was the explanation for a majority of suicides, divorces, and employment terminations. That last statement is dubious at best. Pascal.Tesson 19:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The section has had ^{[citation needed]} for quite sometime and no one has provided any reliable citations that meet the wikipedia standard of being verifiable. I suggest the section be removed unless citations can be provided to support the statements. DPeterson^talk 21:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for removing anything that's uncited but removing the section won't solve anything. The article should address the issue: if there's no conclusive evidence then that's what the article will say but there's clearly a wide belief that creativity has some relation to bipolar disorder. This is often said and has been the subject of various studies (random example: [5]) so it should not be simply zapped. Pascal.Tesson 22:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The section does need to be cleaned up, properly cited and tightend but it should not be deleted. This is just a summary of a more detailed main article on the subject: Creativity and bipolar disorder.--Grace E. Dougle 22:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, until someone who is interested adds citations and cleans it up, it should be removed. I will delete it and put it in the sub-section below so that if there is an editor who is interested that person can make the edits as suggested above. DPeterson^talk 23:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not currently interested in cleaning up that section, I don't really have the qualifications to do so and I will certainly not get into an edit war over this. But for the record, I think that deleting the section is a bad, lazy choice. Why not simply write a few lines simply saying that a connection is often claimed and that current studies are inconclusive in that respect? Pascal.Tesson 23:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, if you or someone who has an interest in adding, deleting, or editing the section to fix it does so that would be great. In the mean time, the section is not encyclopedic in nature as it does not have citations that meet the wikipedia standard of being verifiable. DPeterson^talk 00:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The issue discussed in this section is encyclopedic. We will edit it in the main article text as is usually done on Wikipedia. Also, not all of it is unreferenced. Additional sources have been given in this thread a few posts further up by Pascal.Tesson. We should only remove text when it is likely that there are no references ever to be found. The connection between creativity and mania has been discussed for quite some time.--Grace E. Dougle 09:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess the issue with both the BPD and bipolar articles is that both have swollen to huge sizes with numerous sections over the past year or so and rather then bloating again people are trying to be judicious about what goes in. I feel this bit really isn't part of teh core issue about the illness and the bet thing would be a link (plus a very brief summation) to an article on a separate page. cheers Cas Liber 10:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a strong link between bipolar disorder and creativity; see Jamison's research, and her popularization Touched by Fire, and also Nancy Andreasen's work in the 1970s. However, just because a significantly high proportion of creative people have bipolar disorder, doesn't necessarily mean that the correlation works the other way; no-one is pretending that bipolar disorder is anything other then destructive, even in the lives of those few people who are fortunate enough to also gain a benefit from it. -- The Anome 11:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The "reference" "Kay Redfield Jamison. Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. ISBN 978-0684831831" is of dubious value. First, it is old, 1970's, second, it is not an empirical study. Unless some empirical evidence in a professional peer-reviewed publication can be cited, then this section should be removed. DPeterson^talk 21:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The current content (of the section) is not a summary of what is on the main articel about creativity and bipolar and should be moved there with a 1-2 sentence intro. Cas Liber 23:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I have copied the text from here to the subarticle Creativity and bipolar disorder. The section here should be shortened to about half its length, imho.--Grace E. Dougle 16:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

From creativity,

“

Creativity and mental health

A study by psychologist J. Philippe Rushton found creativity to correlate with intelligence and psychoticism.[28] Another study found creativity to be greater in schizotypal than in either normal or schizophrenic individuals. While divergent thinking was associated with bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex, schizotypal individuals were found to have much greater activation of their right prefrontal cortex.[29] This study hypothesizes that such individuals are better at accessing both hemispheres, allowing them to make novel associations at a faster rate. In agreement with this hypothesis, ambidexterity is also associated with schizotypal and schizophrenic individuals.

Particularly strong links have been identified between creativity and mood disorders, particularly manic-depressive disorder (aka bipolar disorder) and depressive disorder (aka unipolar disorder). In Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Kay Redfield Jamison summarizes studies of mood-disorder rates in writers, poets and artists. She also explores research that identifies mood disorders in such famous writers and artists as Ernest Hemingway (who shot himself after electroconvulsive treatment), Virginia Woolf (who drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on), composer Robert Schumann (who died in a mental institution), and even the famed visual artist, Michelangelo.

”

-- Creativity, Wikipedia

It makes more sense to me, therefore, that bipolar is an effect rather than a cause of creativity, or rather that both are an effect of changes to the prefrontal cortex. In future can we try not to be so blunt and offensive when referring to bipolar sufferers, regardless of how angry we are as to a particular inclusion of something etc. I have a good friend who suffers from bipolar, and making it sound as if bipolar sufferers are simply no-hopers who are all going to shoot themselves doesn't inspire much confidence in me as to your opinion. senex 04:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poll

To get a sense of what editors think about this section, a poll might be in order. Please put your vote and reason below regarding deleting the section for now.DPeterson^talk 13:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

'Delete section on creativity and bipolar'

'YES'Leave deleted because there are not any empirical evidence in a professional peer-reviewed publication cited nor material that meets the wikipedia standard of being verifiable and reliable.DPeterson^talk 13:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
_'YES' Per nom, and I am not convinced that the emphasis of the assertations in this section match their source, which is a print publication, they certainly don't match the description here Kay Redfield Jamison where it is asserted that she showed cases where manic depression and creativity co-existed, not that she claimed any unusual prevalence. We can't have articles full of personal opinions backed by cited sources that have been bent and trimmed to half fit them. Until that discrepancy can be cleared up (one way or another) I am deleting myself. Feel free to re-write and replace it more in accord with its sources. --Zeraeph 17:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Changed my vote to not have this section. It is obviously extremely controversial since it has been removed again and again. Whether creativity is associated or not really does not matter. It is more important to have a stable article, and that won't be possible with the section in it. So: YES, leave out section on creativity.--Grace E. Dougle 17:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, with at most 1-2 sentences and link to another page which already exists. The material can be cut and pasted and moved to the talk page of that article (Bipolar and creativity) so that some interested party can edit it into the article there. Cas Liber 19:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
No, never, never! It is a researched subject, if not exactly proven, and whether we agree with the content or not is not a reason to remove it. What happened to objectivity? Deleting the article when there is numerous works that can be used as citation seems to me nothing but laziness. There's an entire book on it! (Touched with Fire) It's 1996, but the material itself is not exactly the type that outdates considering that it is based mainly on historical accounts. JaneDOA 06:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

'leave section on creativity and bipolar'

_-- Grace E. Dougle 16:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)There is research from institutions like Princeton. The usual Wikipedia pattern should be followed: we have a detailed article on the matter, and we should have a section with a few lines in this articles.</>
Yes Leave out this section...it just doesn't belong in this article. MarkWood 22:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Let's not have a vote, please

Polling is not a substitute for discussion. The content of articles should be determined by consensus driven by evidence from reliable sources, not by counting supporters of any particular view. Please see WP:VOTE for more details.

As far as I can see, we seem to have achieved a consensus on the following:

the current article has an excessive emphasis on the suggestions of a link between creativity and bipolar disorder, and that this discussion needs to be cut down
any such assertion should be backed with cites -- we have cites, but they date back to the 1970s, and some contributors suggest (without providing any cites) that these results are now outdated.

Why not proceed on that basis for now?

First, let's find some cites that meet the normal standards for evidence-based medical research that either support or oppose the hypothesis that bipolar disorder is correlated with creativity. Then, let's work out what to do after that.

A Medline search for "bipolar creativity" brings up 83 hits.

I suggest starting with

Santosa et al. Enhanced creativity in bipolar disorder patients: A controlled study. J Affect Disord. 2006 Nov 23; PMID 17126406.

Rihmer et al. Creativity and mental illness. Psychiatr Hung. 2006;21(4):288-94. PMID 17170470.

Nowakowska et al. Temperamental commonalities and differences in euthymic mood disorder patients, creative controls, and healthy controls. J Affect Disord. 2005 Mar;85(1-2):207-15. PMID 15780691.

I particularly like the abstract of the last-cited paper, which reads in part:

“

OBJECTIVE: Understanding of mood disorders can be enhanced through assessment of temperamental traits. We explored temperamental commonalities and differences among euthymic bipolar (BP) and unipolar (MDD) mood disorder patients, creative discipline graduate student controls (CC), and healthy controls (HC).

...

CONCLUSIONS: Euthymic BP, MDD, and CC compared to HC, had prominent temperamental commonalities. However, BP and CC had the additional commonality of increased openness compared to HC. BP had particularly high Cyclothymia scores that were significantly higher then those of MDD. The prominent BP-CC overlap suggests underlying neurobiological commonalities between people with mood disorders and individuals involved in creative disciplines, consistent with the notion of a temperamental contribution to enhanced creativity in individuals with bipolar disorders.

”

-- The Anome 19:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Good detective work, but Ref 1 and ref 3 are the same authors reporting different questionnaires on the same bunch of 49 people, while ref 2 discounts the link. I actually don't object to the discussion of the subject matter per se, but it is not a core part of an encyclopedic entry on bipolar either. Instead, a well-written page on bipolar and creativity (the beginnings of one which already exists) is the place this material should be taken. I am not saying it should be deleted outright. cheers Cas Liber 19:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can't take much credit for it: it didn't take much effort to type "bipolar creative" into PubMed, and these are just a few of the top results from that search.

I must say that I don't see ref 2 as discounting the link. Its abstract reads, in full:

“

It has been known for a long time that people with salient social and artistic creativity suffer more frequently from psychiatric illnesses than the average population. In their review paper, the authors assess the Hungarian and international scientific literature regarding the association of creativity and psychopathology. They conclude that contrary to the concept prevailing in the first part of the 20th century about the strong association between schizophrenia and creativity, the results of empirical research now unambiguously suggest that prominent social and artistic creativity is associated primarily with affective, and more specifically with bipolar affective illnesses. In addition, we already know that as regards the development of creativity, it is not the given affective (depressive, manic, hypomanic) episode which is important, but the hyperthymic or cyclothymic temperament structure which also predisposes for affective illness.

”

(My italics).

What is interesting, though, is that it does discount the mood-phase-related theory in favour of a temperament-based theory, and suggests that this may be the cause of both the illness and the beneficial creativity.

I particularly like the fact that it's a review paper: unfortunately, Unfortunately, I don't have access to Hungarian medical journals at my fingertips, so I can't follow up its cites.

I do agree with you, though, that this article should not give undue emphasis to the BP <--> creativity link, and should certainly not use the link to romanticize BP in any way, but it seems to be a sufficiently widely held, and now reasonably uncontroversial (at least, apparently, in the medical literature, if not in this talk page) view that it deserves some prominence in the article.-- The Anome 19:35, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion here would be a good thing. The results of the poll do suggest strongly that most editors prefer leaving out the offensive section. DPeterson^talk 17:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Offensive?--Grace E. Dougle 17:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Desperately seeking cleanup

Creativity and bipolar disorder desperately needs attention. It's an appalling mess. -- The Anome 20:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

tagged Cas Liber 00:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

--Aervanath 08:34, 18 February 2007 (UTC)==Merge from Creativity and bipolar disorder==

I'm not even sure it should be an article. I am never happy with articles that essentially artificially combine two topics that are covered elsewhere in their own right. I would rather see it cleaned up, merged here and re-directed? --Zeraeph 20:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it does belong as a subsection in another article, I guess this article is the one it should belong to. However, doing this would be in direct opposition to the current attempts to move any detailed discussion out of this article. Still, its current content is so poor, I'd support just redirecting it here, without any attempt at merging, until a better article can be written. -- The Anome 21:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The topic itself is perfectly legitimate, and encyclopedic, the references are not outdated, wrong, old, or anything. Any association between creativity and bipolar needs to be banned from this article on the grounds of maintainability only. I am against deleting and redirecting creativity and bipolar disorder. Tag to be cleaned up if it isn't already. And you obviously won't be able to merge it because a section on creativity in this article is about to be banned per poll above.--Grace E. Dougle 21:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not saying it is a bad article, it actually has promise, just that it is a "non-topic" like "cashmere and chanel" or "cheese and wedgewood", they have been known to be together, associations have been made, but the combination of the two is not an encyclopaedic topic at all --Zeraeph 21:26, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

You have just added a merge-template to creativity and bipolar disorder, but you don't want a section on it in here (see poll). That's contradictory. What are you arguing for?--Grace E. Dougle 21:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding my earlier comment. I did not want the section here as it existed, because it was not supported in that form by the only source cited. I actually said that I had no objection to a re-write that did relate fully to real sources. Equally i see no reason why any valid, cited information in the current Creativity and bipolar disorder article should not be merged here as a subsection (and, whatever is not valid and cited, of course, just deleted). --Zeraeph 21:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

ok. However, the valid, cited information in this other article is the same info that was here this afternoon. I just copied it there a few hours ago. The problem I see with keeping it here as a subsection is that it is something that will lead to edit wars. The same info has been added and deleted many times during the past 48 hours. The aim of this game is to create a stable article which can be awarded GA status.--Grace E. Dougle 22:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Well obviously, as the text was not a good match the citations, that particular text should not have been put here, perhaps NONE of the existing Creativity and bipolar disorder should make the transition, but rather a subsection on that topic that accurately represents valid sources? In other words, as far as I am concerned the topic is not appropriate as an article, it is appropriate as a subsection, but there does not seem to be any valid, cited text to use for that yet. Apart from the first paragraph of the existing article, which has already made the transition here into the intro today. --Zeraeph 22:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

OK - I feel the best is for a a 1-2 snetence redirect, so I Oppose merge FWIW. Cas Liber 00:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

These should not be merged. DPeterson^talk 01:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I would say that the bipolar disorder article is already really long, we shouldn't be trying to add more material if we don't have to. Creativity and bipolar disorder does need to be cleaned up and sourced, though. Maybe also add a tagline to top, saying that Creativity and bipolar disorder is an expansion of that section in the bipolar article, like at Mixed state (psychiatry).

In my view, the post which triggered this discussion, which was unsigned, was highly POV and misleading. A medical and a social model of disability are both generally accepted and synthesized, including by the World Health Organization's ICF, but that post expounded only a medical model, calling anything else "ignorant garbage".

In regard to bipolar disorder, I don't believe these issues should be singled out for exclusion or minimization, whether on the basis of the length of the article or possible edit conflicts. And I would argue that actually the focus should not be solely on "creativity". Studies and models of hypomania/mania have made links to goal-pursuit and achievement more generally, e.g. [6]. Incidentally, purely for incidental interest as pop psych, couple of books arguing America may be founded on this kind of link![7]

I'm not sure if a separate article on this is needed or not but I think we should try to summarize the issues within this article if possible EverSince 17:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bipolar disorders research

Sometime between the split of Bipolar disorders research from this article, the link to it was removed. Can anyone look into the article and see if they can link back to it from this article? Squids_and_Chips 00:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. DPeterson^talk 13:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

The section was a mess, and filled with non-notable link-spam. Rather than playing favorites, I removed them all, and replaced with the dmoz template. I am suggesting that the addition of any additional links should be discussed here. Leuko 03:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bipolar blog

There has been talk of adding this blog of a personal/educational account of bipolar disorder:

http://thesecretlifeofamanicdepressive.wordpress.com

What do you think? I think under "Further Reading" it's acceptable. It's written in a literary fashion and is being published as a book.

Razamatazz 03:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, we should not link to this blog since it is not a WP:RS, and per WP:EL links to blogs and personal websites should be avoided. Leuko 03:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Leading cause of disability"

Bipolar disorder is a severely disabling medical condition. In fact, it is a leading cause of disability in the world, according to the World Health Organization.[citation needed]

This is not true. Bipolar disorder is the sixth, not first, leading cause of disability in the Western World. I can't find an exact citation but here is some info:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/burden.cfm

Razamatazz 03:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I removed the stmt since no citation has been provided. DPeterson^talk 13:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Semi-Page protection

I put in a request for semi-page protection, given the frequent vandalism by IP addresses. See [8] DPeterson^talk 23:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It is done now...I hope this helps. DPeterson^talk 13:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. EverSince 15:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Worldwide view / Northern Hemisphere?

I've perused this page and the talk page archives, and I can't for the life of me find why this page is tagged as biased towards world-northern views. Does the psychiatric community outside of the Northern Hemisphere subscribe to some different form of science? This tag should be justified or removed. Ohm 813 18:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts for a while...I have removed it now. DPeterson^talk 21:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

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