Fighting Stigma of Mental Illness

Major depressive disorder is considered to be the most frequently encountered form of mental illness. The Global Burden of Disease study identified depression as having the third highest impact in terms of the so called disability-adjusted life years in Europe and the greatest impact of all diseases in the Americas. Although most of depressive episodes occur in patients with unipolar depression, a minority is also found in bipolar disorder. 

Actually, bipolarity is not a disorder and not a condition, but a psychiatric illness. 

The origins of the categorical approach to bipolar illness goes back to one of the founders of modern psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin. In the present classification systems, such as ICD-10 and DSM IV (or dsm5) bipolar disorder refers to a group of affective disorders in which patients experience episodes of depression, characterised by low mood, reduced energy and anhedonia, and either episodes of mania - with elevated or irritable mood, increased energy and reduced need for sleep -, or hypomania, whose symptoms are less severe than in mania. 

Patients with bipolar disorder often suffer from one or more comorbid psychiatric disorders. The most common are anxiety and substance use disorders.

As depressive patients usually seek treatment for depression, the true nature of a possibly underlying bipolar disorder with depressive features may unfortunately be not recognized and even misdiagnozed as unipolar major depressive disorder, so that these patients don‘t receive the adequate treatment. In some cases this could deteriorate the overall progression of the illness. 

Today the promotion of mental health and the knowledge about mental illness is one of the most important challenges worldwide to be met. Fighting the stigma of mental illness at the end means to improve mental health of many million people, so they can lead better and healthier lives. 

Patrick J. Kennedy, son of the late Edward Moore „Ted“ Kennedy, is co-founder of ,One Mind for Research‘, a foundation dedicated to enhancements in funding and collaboration in research of brain disorders. He is also member of the ,Kennedy Forum on Community Mental Health‘ and thereby follows into JFK‘s footsteps in order to promote improvements in treatment and care of people with mental illness, intellectual disabilities and addictions. Himself he is known to suffer from bipolar disorder. Years ago he acknowledged being a recovering alcoholic and being treated for cocaine use during his younger years. In 2006, while he was still a U.S. representative of the Democratic Party he crashed his automobile into a barricade on Capitol Hill, as it seems under the influence of prescription drugs and possibly under alcohol. He is one of the most prominent advocates fighting to end the stigma that is associated with mental illness.