How to Counsel a Client With Bipolar Disorder

Counseling patients with bipolar disorder is challenging because they often have multiple symptoms that must be addressed. People with bipolar disease, also called manic depression, often experience extreme mania (called highs) and extreme depression (called lows). The key to counseling these patients is to attend to both of these poles.

Instructions

• 1

  The first step in treating a patient with bipolar disorder is to get a general history. Often these patients have had trouble from a very early age. If the diagnosis of bipolar disorder is new for the patient, you may be able to help reframe past trauma as manifestations of the disease rather than personal problems.

• 2

  Determine how the patient is currently doing. He or she may be struggling with mania. Symptoms of mania include hypersexuality, compulsive shopping, compulsive gambling, a lack of need for sleep, overexcitability and rapid speech. If this is the case, the patient should be counseled to try relaxation techniques and cognitive behavioral therapy, in which the patient learns to monitor his or her thought patterns. This kind of therapy can help stop the mania that often afflicts people with bipolar disorder.

• 3

  A counselor must look for signs of depression. Patients with bipolar disorder and depression experience fatigue, difficulty with memory, low self-esteem, feelings of guilt and a preoccupation with death or suicide. Cognitive behavioral therapy can also be helpful with depression because it teaches the patient to disrupt the ill thoughts that are perpetuating the patient's depression.

• 4

  As a counselor for a person with bipolar disorder, advise them to see medical help. Most evidence suggests that bipolar disorder must be treated with antipsychotic medications, mood stabilizers or antidepressants.