“Emil Kraepelin, the German psychiatrist who coined the phrase “manic depression,” wrote that bipolar illness, in contrast to schizophrenia, usually has a good prognosis. In Kraepelin’s original sample of 459 patients, 45% had only one attack, and very few had more than four episodes.” This was in the era before medication and represents the largest resource of documented unmedicated bipolar illness.
However, a quick search of “bipolar disorder “prognosis” shows mentalhealth.com, which states that modern bipolar illness typically consists of 8-10 episodes over a lifetime… what is going on? Why has the episode frequency/severity increased so much over the last 100 years?
And I do want to point out that Schizophrenia actually has a good prognosis, if you leave psychopharm out of it. Kraepelin often got it confused with encephalitis lethargica… and thus confused the prognosis.
You once commented on my depression blog and I appreciated it so much.
Are you no longer blogging? I’m sad. I wanted to follow. Again.
I took a looooong break from blogging, but decided to try again…
depressionsux.wordpress.com