Patients with bipolar disorder may have insufficient insight into the manic state. This tendency can be seen not only in manic state but also remission state cases. Therefore, for a correct diagnosis, it is necessary to carefully interview patients regarding the medical history and medical condition. Even after the diagnosis has made, it is necessary to listen in detail to whether it is manic. The more severe the manic condition and longer the history, the greater the disorder of insight gets worse may be in some patients. Therefore, it is important to conduct psychoeducation over a sufficient time as soon as the diagnosis is made. On the other hand, care should be taken because there is a possibility that self-stigma may develop if the insight level increases. Before developing bipolar disorder, patients are likely to show more academic abilities or creativity than average, and so psychoeducation should take that into consideration.
<Author's abstract>
Illness Insight in and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder
Division of Psychiatry, Tohoku Medical and Pharmaceutical University
Psychiatria et Neurologia Japonica
119: 926-934, 2017
<Keywords:insight, manic state, bipolar disorder, psychoeducation>