Bipolar disorder and the medicalization of mood: an epidemics of diagnosis?

Purpose – Over the last years, in the United States there has been significant increase in the consumption of pharmaceuticals for the treatment of mental disorders. More specifically, the number of clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorders in young people has increased by 40 times over the last 10 years. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the growth of bipolar disorder diagnosis using a sociological frame.

Methodology/approach – The methodology is based on the concepts proposed by the ‘conflictualist’ perspective of medical sociology. Medicalization, that is, the extension of medical categories in everyday life, is the main concept on which the chapter is constructed. The ‘syndromization’ of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lowers the threshold above which someone may be diagnosed with bipolarism. Moreover, advertisements push people to seek for pharmaceutical treatment for conditions of ‘normal’ sadness.

Findings – This work shows the importance of the analysis of ‘medical’ phenomena by approaches taken from social sciences. Bipolar disorder can be a terrible and painful disease, but it seems that there is the possibility that it is over-diagnosed.

Contribution to the field – In this epidemics of diagnosis of bipolar disorder it is central to integrate the medical perspective with other dimensions: the classification of mental disease, the advertisement for drugs and the cultural aspects of a given society.