So how close do you want to get to knowing someone with bipolar disorder?

This book is part of a series designed to help young people with mental disorders understand, recognize, and accept their conditions, and get them into treatment. The idea for this is to include both an autobiography of someone who suffers from the condition and a description of what can and should be done.

I can't help but feeling that both have been left undone. I never feel as if I know Patrick E. Jamieson. I get to know someone who gets put in hospitals. Let's face it: Mental hospitals are terrible places. You can't learn to know or understand anyone there. We need to meet them outside the hospital and learn what they are like as full members of society. In the case of Dr. Jamieson, we never do -- we don't even know what field he earned his Ph.D. in, although that is presumably relevant since it's plastered on the cover of the book!

Also -- speaking from my own knowledge of psychology -- I don't think there is much of a description here either of hypomania or even of depression, and hypomania (which is milder than the full-blown mania Jamieson experiences) is believed to be far more common than full psychotic mania. Bipolar I (which features mania) and bipolar II (hypomania) are classified as different conditions, but the relationship is much debated; this book needs to say more. Indeed, based on this book, I wouldn't even begin to know how to tell bipolar disorder from the even more devastating disorder of schizophrenia. Even one of Dr. Jamieson's medications -- Haldol -- is a schizophrenia drug, not a bipolar drug. (Admittedly it is used for bipolar disorder, especially to calm extreme mania, but it is a nasty drug that should be given only when there is no other good choice.)

Which brings us to treatment. Treatment for bipolar disorder will generally have two parts: medication and therapy, probably cognitive behavioral therapy (to help them deal with the behaviors that make their life situations worse). The latter gets almost no attention in this book, and the former is almost all about lithium, even though many bipolar patients today use a different mood stabilizer and many (arguably too many) use two or more psychoactive medications.

And incidentally, if you're going to talk about great living people with bipolar disorder, can't you come up with someone who is actually great, like a scientist, writer, statesman -- someone who has done something useful, as opposed to pop culture figures?

Finally, I am bothered by the way Dr. Jamieson disclaims the illness -- treating it as something that is not part of him, as (say) a cane is not part of a person who uses it to walk. This is a controversial point, I grant. But while I don't have bipolar disorder of any sort, I do have a different disorder -- autism. And I am not a person who is afflicted with autism; I am an autistic person. Does it bring me handicaps? Yes. It also brings me gifts; I can do many things that a normal person cannot. So, too, with bipolar disorder -- it brings depression, it brings mania, and it often brings great creativity. I wish Dr. Jamieson could be proud of the disorder while disliking the handicaps, rather than disliking the whole condition.

Bottom line: There is much that is good here, and if you are prepared to consult several other books on bipolar disorder (preferably consulting them first), it is not a bad addition to your library. But I don't think it will convince many young people (especially the manic young people who need it most!), and I don't think it will supply all the advice and support that their family and friends desperately need. ( )