How to Help a Bipolar Adolescent

Helping an adolescent with bipolar disorder can be not only difficult but painful. Not knowing what to expect, finding yourself stunned by sudden changes in mood, and watching a young person stagger next to the precipice of self-destruction is a nightmare. Thankfully, there are increasingly more effective medications to calm these emotional waters. However, as a parent, relative, or close friend, there are additional ways of helping an adolescent with bipolar grow into an intact human being.

Instructions

• 1

  Help develop a healthy self-esteem. Remember that even though this young person carries a diagnosis of bipolar disease, they are also going through the developmental stages that come with just being an adolescent. Perhaps the most powerful of these is creation of an appropriate sense of self-esteem. Encourage and praise the adolescent every chance you get.

• 2

  Teach the adolescent about bipolar disorder. Realize that if they integrate the notion that being bipolar means that they are flawed or broken, then good self-esteem will be that much harder to achieve. One of the best ways for you to help them realize that they are not flawed to educate them about the disease.

• 3

  Familiarize yourself with the incidence of bipolar disease. There are estimated to be 3.75 million people in America who will at some time in their lives carry a diagnosis of being bipolar. That's more than the number of redheads. Neither condition has anything to do with being flawed. Redheads must take particular care regarding sun exposure. Bipolars must guard against mood swings.

• 4

  Emphasize that there are a number of skills associated with bipolar. Tell them about a recent Stanford study that showed a high degree of creativity in bipolars. Add that Beethoven, Chopin, Winston Churchill, and Kurt Vonnegut were all thought to have been bipolar.

• 5

  Further characterize bipolar as simply one of many biologic traits that characterize a person. Emphasize the fact that fortunately, we now have the capabilities to assure people that they can use the skills that come with a trait without having to suffer its accompanying handicaps.

• 6

  Introduce them to the work of Victor Frankl. This psychiatrist was a holocaust survivor who developed logotherapy, and one application of logotherapy has been in the assistance of people with long term conditions.