A question for psychologists in the audience..

nesf

Should I try psychology?

Some detail:

I'm a bipolar sufferer with 15 or so years of associated baggage. Medication has done wonderful things for me and helped calm my moods greatly but I still have residual problems with habit and behaviour from the bad years that I haven't managed to stamp out. Would a psychologist be useful with helping me to disentangle this kind of mess? I don't want to go into too much personal detail on such a public site etc so I'm afraid I'll have to let it at the generalities above.


If so, what options for treatment are there and what routes are available to access it? I'm in Cork city if region makes any difference.

JuliusCaesar

"A recent evidence-based review has been done for psychological treatments for bipolar disorder. The review identified five main types of psychotherapy that have been studied: couples-partners, group interpersonal or psychoeducative, cognitive-behavioral, family, and interpersonal and social rhythms. Several of these therapy types including couples-partners, cognitive-behavioral, and family methods all have randomized clinical trials supporting their role in improving functional clinical outcome or improving illness management skills.

It appears that an education component focusing on early warning symptoms and triggers of episodes, as well as well developed, detailed, individual-specific action plans seem to be key components in many of these research studies. Also, the core education agenda frequently includes various approaches such as cognitive behavioral interventions. It appears that the basis of the education is to improve disease management through a focus on basic principles such as the biological basis, environmental components, course and outcomes, setting specific treatment goals and assisting with coping skills." From here

Gibs

If you want a flavour of how a good CBT programme might help address some of the things you mentioned, there are a couple of books I would recommend.

This one is by Monica Basco, who is extremely well-regarded and has written a lot of manual-type books for use in CBT and Bipolar Diorder. It's a workbook format if you like that approach.

This one is more of a straightforwardly readable book, but no less useful. Again the author has written lots of academic stuff and is very well regarded.

I have used both with clients and have had a mostly good response.

Many of the strategies used by CBT practitioners are included in these books so it might whet the appetite for you.

Perhaps it's too obvious to state explicitly, but I would recommend that anyone with bipolar disorder who wants to work with a CBT practitioner should ensure that the practitioner has a lot of experience working with people with Bipolar disorder.;)