The cause of some bipolar characteristics

[ADiane]

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Could bipolar disorder be promulgated by caregivers who only responded to children when the child was displaying great stress and discontentment, or when the child was delightful, cheery and upbeat, and perhaps would be reinforcing the tendency to display those types of behavior in order to get the affection/conflict resolution a bipolar individual needed?

I don't know much about behaviorism or bipolar disorder, and how/ if these two relate so I was wondering if someone out there who knew could fill me in on why or why not this is the case.

I've asked this question before on different sites, but I didn't really get a satisfactory explanation. Thanks in advance for your answer. (Also, I really just want to know if I should stop trying to think about the roots of disorders so hard as if I could even be on to something that hasn't been looked at already, since I'm still an undergrad. Thanks, again.)

 

[Ollie123]

Bipolar disorder isn't my area, but couple things.

Could this, in isolation, CAUSE the disorder? I seriously doubt it. Nothing is that straightforward in this field. There are literally, thousands of variables that likely go into any disorder.

I don't have the answer, but I certainly think its reasonable that it might contribute to symptom expression. A purely behaviorist view is not going to get you very far these days, but certainly things like this should be considered. I don't know if this has been looked at (again, not my area), but I find it hard to believe it wasn't looked at sometime during the psychoanalysis/behaviorism transition years since it seems a natural intersection. Lit searches shall give you the answer🙂

I'll also add it is ABSOLUTELY not too soon to be thinking about these things. Will you come up with a magical cure for bipolar disorder as an undergrad? Probably not. Don't be afraid to be wrong though. It shows you're thinking. Professors greatly prefer questions like this to the typical undergrad questions of "Can you tell me exactly what sections are going to be on the test? Why do we have to learn STATISTICS? I was out late drinking and missed class, can you send me the notes?"

 

[clinicalme]

I've been working in the field of Psychiatric Genetics for the past 4 years.

My answer is plain and simple: bipolar disorder is not caused ONLY by environmental factors. There is a clear genetic predisposition for the disorder.

It is clear for us that bipolar disorder runs in families. In famylies where bipolar disorder is present, there is also risk for depression, anxiety disorders, and substance related disorders.

As you state, there is a possibility for a caregiver to reinforce certain behaviors such as being "stressed, delightful, cheery and upbeat". But also ask yourself about the other symptoms in this disorder: irritability, extreme energy, talkativeness, less need for sleep, risky behavior, being grandiose, increase in goal-directed activity, flight of ideas, etc.

For a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (according to DSM-IV) you need to present for at least a week either euphoria or irritability and 4 of the above symptoms. And you also have to have impairment (social, occupational, etc) or distress.

Keep on reading!

Hope this helps you.

 

[JackD]

I could not imagine that it is due to just learning or primarily to learning. I think if you take the basic principle of "if it can be learned, it can be unlearned", it does not apply to bipolar disorder because it is often disorder that never fully goes away, even with treatment. From what I understand, a large number of people who receive treatment for bipolar disorder, still have episodes, even with therapy. If it was conditioned, I would think it could be unconditioned and that does not appear to be the case. Also, they probably would have found a "cure" for it back when behaviorist therapy was really dominating the field.