Home > Encyclopedia of Psychology > Bipolar Disorder

A condition (traditionally called manic depression) in which a person alternates between the two emotional extremes of depression and mania (an elated, euphoric mood).

Bipolar disorder is classified among affective disorders in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that about one in one hundred people will develop the disorder, which affects some two million Americans. While this condition occurs equally in both males and females and in every ethnic and racial groups, it is more common among well-educated, middle- and upper-income persons. Those suffering from untreated bipolar...