BIPOLARITY - PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC AND PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGICAL INTERVENTION

Abstract

Bipolar disorder or "bipolar affective disorder" is a chronic illness, being considered a complex mental disorder that affects approximately 60 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) bipolar disorder is the sixth cause of disability and the third most serious mental illness.Unipolar depressive disorder (UDD), which is on the spectrum of bipolar disorder (BD), affects about 15% of the population during their lifetime, being one of the most frequent diagnoses in psychiatry.In specific populations, it can reach even higher percentages, as observed in cancer patients, reaching 47% of individuals.Psychotherapeutic follow-up is essential in the treatment of bipolar disorder.Several studies prove the effectiveness of psychotherapy associated with pharmacological treatment.Psychotherapy promotes self-knowledge and self-perception, helping to understand oneself and the disease, is a means of creating and establishing strategies to deal with the peculiar difficulties arising from the disorder, and helps resistant patients to adhere to pharmacological treatment.It is estimated that approximately 50% of individuals with bipolar disorder do not adhere to pharmacological treatment correctly and discontinue it at some point.The basis of the treatment of bipolar disorder is the use of drugs that regulate or adjust the patient's mood, mood stabilizers, thus avoiding large fluctuations.