Bipolar Disorder in Childhood and Early Adolescence

Abstract

This book could be useful to therapists with an individual, intrapsychic orientation, to make them aware that treating depression itself, as well as most psychiatric disorders, separately from intimate relationships is no longer enough.Couple, group, and family therapists will find support to maintain their contextual positions.The staggering numbers of depressed individuals and their partners, do suggest the need for using additional modes of intervention, besides medication and face-to-face talk.TV, mail, faxes, telephones, computers, and the Internet should be harnessed to reach as many depressed individuals, their partners, and their children in ways that were unexplored and not experienced a generation ago.In addition to the above-mentioned media, prevention of depression could be furthered by psychological and behavioral "vaccines" like exercise, sport activities, relaxation training, increase of the frequency of positive behaviors, e.g., prolonged hugging and touching in couples and families.If psychotherapists want to enter into this century, this book demonstrates the need for them to adopt and adapt as many creative, alternative additions to face-to-face talk and medication to treat depression, its fallout, and its aftermath, as they can find.