What are the common treatments for bipolar disorder?
The primary treatment for bipolar disorder is pharmacotherapy. Patients with bipolar disorder typically are treated with a mood stabilizer such as lithium, depakote, or other anticonvulsants. More recently, psychiatrists have found that some of the atypical antipsychotics are useful for treating episodes of mania and even depression, and preventing future episodes of mania or depression. Patients with bipolar disorder will often also benefit from some sort of psychotherapy. Inevitably, their illnesses cause some sort of wake of destruction in their social or interpersonal lives which can then come back to bother them in terms of guilt and feelings of loss. These things are amenable to treatment from various psychotherapy techniques. It's also very important in bipolar disorder to educate the patient about their disease. This is important because a patient needs to be able to recognize the onset of a mood episode so it doesn't progress to the point of impairing their ability to function. Another factor to consider in the treatment of bipolar disorder is that as the illness progresses, it's not uncommon to find that we need more than one medication to achieve our treatment goals. This typically would be a combination of anticonvulsant, or antidepressant or a combination with an antipsychotic medication.
