The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know [Paperback]

David J. Miklowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 2002

Thanks to sharper diagnosis and better medicine, the future is brighter for people with bipolar disorder than in past generations. But if you or someone you love is struggling with the frantic highs and crushing lows of this illness, there are still many hurdles to surmount at home, at work, and in daily life.

*How can you learn to distinguish between the early warning signs of mood swings and the normal ups and downs of life?
*What medications are available, and what are their side effects?
*What should you do when you find yourself escalating into mania or descending into depression?
*How can you get the help and support you need from family members and friends?
*How can you tell your coworkers about your illness without endangering your career?

In this comprehensive guide, Dr. David J. Miklowitz offers straight talk that can help you tackle these and related questions, take charge of your illness, and reclaim your life. A leading researcher and clinical specialist who knows what works, Dr. Miklowitz supplies proven tools to help you achieve balance--and free yourself from the emotional and financial havoc that result when symptoms rule your life--without sacrificing your right to rich and varied emotional experiences.

This essential resource will help you and your family members come to terms with the diagnosis, recognize early warning signs of manic or depressive episodes, cope with triggers of mood swings, resolve medication problems, and learn to collaborate effectively with doctors and therapists. You'll learn specific ways to ask for support and help from your family and friends--and what to do when their "caring" feels like "controlling." For times when the going gets tough, a wealth of examples of how others have dealt with similar challenges offer new perspectives and new solutions.

Whether you have recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, are considering seeking help for the first time, or have been in treatment for years, this empowering book is designed to help put you--not your illness--back in charge of your life.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Hard on the heels of Fuller Torrey and Michael B. Knable's excellent Surviving Manic Depression: A Manual on Bipolar Disorder for Patients, Families and Providers (LJ 1/02) comes another strong title. Both books cover the origins, symptoms, and treatments for bipolar disorder, with emphasis on current medications. The main difference between the two books is that the current title by Miklowitz (psychology, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder) is intended for patients. It spends a good deal of time on issues exclusive to the sufferer how to come to terms with the diagnosis, whom to confide in, and how to recognize one's own mood swings. More concise in its treatment of the issues just mentioned, Torrey and Knable's title is addressed to a more general audience, spends more time reviewing the scientific evidence concerning the origins of the disease, and has a much more useful resource list. On the whole, Surviving Manic Depression would be the first choice for most libraries, with Miklowitz's book recommended for patient education libraries and medium and large public libraries. Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Dr. Miklowitz's book is both impressive and very humane. His lucid, multidimensional exploration of the patient's experience and his practical and empowering self-management techniques go far toward promoting stability. This book should be required reading for people with the disorder, their family members, and the physicians and therapists who treat them."--Demitri F. Papolos, MD, and Janice Papolos, authors of Overcoming Depression and The Bipolar Child

"When Miklowitz started his work, it seemed paradoxical to many that psychosocial approaches, including illness education, could affect the course of an illness which is incontrovertibly genetic and biological in its origins. It was Miklowitz's pioneering research that proved this assumption wrong. Now he has provided patients and families with just the right psychoeducational tool--an authoritative and eminently readable book about bipolar illness and its treatment."--Frederick K. Goodwin, MD, coauthor of Manic-Depressive Illness, Research Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Center on Neuroscience, Medical Progress and Society, George Washington University Medical Center

"The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide is a practical, straightforward book that will be a great help to those who have bipolar illness, as well as their families."--Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, author of An Unquiet Mind and Night Falls Fast

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (January 24, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572305258
• ISBN-13: 978-1572305250
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Bipolar
  • #92 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Aging > Depression

More About the Author

David J. Miklowitz, PhD, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Colorado, is a leading international scholar and author in the study of bipolar disorder. He is currently investigating the effectiveness of his Family-Focused Therapy for adolescent bipolar disorder.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

411 of 416 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book review from Colorado, June 13, 2002

By 

CB Evans (Colorado USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know (Paperback)

When media began publicizing the increase in diagnoses for bipolar disorder a few years ago, it was all but certain that the naysayers eventually would follow.
Bipolar? Yeah, right. That's just the latest fancy excuse for people who don't want to take responsibility for their own actions.
That backlash has already begun.
Those who doubt bipolar is real, or serious, might talk to a friend who's been diagnosed with this potentially devastating brain disorder (once better known as manic depression). It is characterized by cycles of crushing depression alternating with periods of excessive physical, mental and even spiritual energy.
Anyone who has bipolar disorder will tell you: It's real. Unlike other mental health conditions, it does seem to have an "upside" -- sometimes people in hypo-manic stages can be highly creative, gregarious and energetic -- but over time, it can be debilitating, exhausting and even fatal.
In a time of increasing public skepticism, it's nice that one of the nation's top bipolar disorder researchers has published a user-friendly guide to the disease for patients and their families.
"The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide;What You and Your Family Need to Know" by David Miklowitz, (Guilford Press; $18.95) professor of psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is an essential resource.
Time and again in his practical guide, Miklowitz reminds those with bipolar disorder that they are not imagining their disease, and even that the disease itself can make patients prone to doubting themselves.
"The absence of a definitive test (for the disease) makes it easy to forget that you have a bio-chemical imbalance and even easier to believe that you never had one in the first place," he writes. "... Many people start to believe that 'I had this illness once, but now it's under my control,' especially when they've been well for a while. But bipolar symptoms have a way of recurring when you least expect them."
The book offers a wealth of material that can help demystify the disorder. Miklowitz methodically explains the disease, its symptoms and diagnosis, moves on to cogent explanations of its possible causes ("genetics, biology and stress"), then spends most of the book offering advice on how to manage it. He even offers worksheets and logs to help people come to a better understanding of and approach to bipolar illness.
Books by academic researchers always have the potential to be bone-dry. But Miklowitz understands that accessibility is the goal here and is writing for the layperson, even peppering the text with real-life experiences of people with the illness . Reading some of these can be both illuminating and horrifying. Especially when they are in mania, people with this chemical imbalance can do some dangerous, illegal and destructive (to family, friends, self and even strangers) things.
Informative, interesting, and compassionate, "The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide" is a valuable new resource for people with the illness, and their family and friends.

186 of 191 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It may raise more questions than your doctor wants to answer, July 13, 2003

By 

Lemas Mitchell "Libertarian/ Empiricist" (Hunan Changsha) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know (Paperback)

This book is great. And very well researched.

He does a good job letting us know that there are differences in the types of medications prescibed for rapid cycling vs. "traditional" bipolar. And he gives us some accurate scales to describe the degree of mania or depression.

The case studies are very well chosen, and each person who reads this book should be able to find a bit of themselves contained therein.

Very important: The reading level is very light and it reads like a magazine. Sometimes, these bipolar books tend to go bipolar: Either they read like a medical journal, or they read like a romance novel. Miklowitz has found the happy medium.

128 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must buy!, September 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know (Paperback)

Simply put, this book has changed my life. After years of being in denial about my illness, or perhaps more correctly-in confusion about my illness, I picked this book up this summer and could not put it down. David Miklowitz warms up to the reader like a small town country doctor, who comes into your living room, holds your hand, looks right into your eyes-and tells you exactly what's wrong with you. He doesn't frighten you with jargon or condescending academic mumbo-jumbo or scientific psychobabble. His tone is friendly, calming, and his concepts accessible, even when he explains the biochemical basis for bipolar disorder. I particularly like how he peppers every chapter with small capsules of what other bipolars have gone through in their own words. The book is a must for every bipolar's library-newly diagnosed, veterans, those still in denial. Relatives, loved ones, friends, and professionals working in the field with bipolar disorder patients will find it an excellent resource as well.