The term brought back to popularity by the media is actually a psychological mood disorder that occurs from the fluctuations or shifts between 2 extreme affective episodes that we know very well: depression (being too sad) and mania (being dangerously happy).
Not many people are aware that Manic-Depressive Disorder, a relatively obsolete term, has already changed its official identity to the new and more impressive term, Bi-Polar Disorder. Don’t worry about the differences between the two names, they are after all, just names; manic-depression is manic-depression. Let the clinicians worry about investigating the presence of hypomanic episodes (for Bi-Polar II Disorders) and manic episodes (for Bi-Polar I Disorders). After all, psychological treatment between affective disorders would vary slightly at the most.
A huge misconception people have about manic-depression is that it is usually confused with a mixed episode. A mixed episode, like manic-depression, is also mixture of both manic and depressive symptoms. The major difference between the two is that mixed episodes are more erratic than Bi-polar disorders; it is more erratic on the shifts between a manic phase and a depressive phase. Manic-depressive’s or Bi-polar disorder’s shift from mania to depression (or vice-versa) could take several days to weeks (For example: the client suffers depression for a month then enters a manic phase for 2 weeks). Mix episodes however, will appear similar to diurnal variations where several shifts can occur in a day. So please don’t accuse or diagnose your moody friends with manic-depression; it may just be something they ate or something they dreamt the night before that is triggering a mixed episode for that day.
In behavioral terms, manic-depression may manifest itself as the opposite of depression but in theory, manic-depression is considered as one of its variations (not its opposite). It was always assumed in clinical practice that manic-depressives are, in reality, depressives. The only difference is that some depressives cope with their depression through eating, some depressives cope by sleeping; manic-depressives, however, cope with their depression by fighting the depressive mood directly by swinging to its direct affective opposite: mania. Being in the same diagnostic category and having the same model as depressive disorder, it is no surprise why such a disorder as manic-depression would be treated in a similar manner as depression. Treat the depression and the mania will disappear. Do take note that being happy is a good sign for depressive clients; however, for manic-depressive clients, signs of extreme happiness may only be the beginning.
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