History of bipolar disorder

It wasn't until the mid-19th century that a French psychiatrist by the name of Jean-Pierre Falret wrote an article describing "circular insanity" and this is believed to be the first recorded diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

[5] There are at least five other candidates, and part of the confusion surrounding the exact etymology of the word mania is its varied usage in the pre-Hippocratic poetry and mythologies.

[8][9] Aretaeus is recognized as having authored most of the surviving texts referring to a unified concept of manic-depressive illness, viewing both melancholia and mania as having a common origin in "black bile".

[12] Two weeks later, on February 14, 1854, Jean-Pierre Falret presented a description to the academy on what was essentially the same disorder, and designated folie circulaire ('circular insanity') by him.

[16][17] Jung's distinction is today referred to in the DSM-IV as that between 'bipolar I' (mania involving possible psychotic episodes) and 'bipolar II' (hypomania without psychosis).

[24] The current nosology, bipolar disorder, became popular in 1980,[25] and some individuals prefer the older term because it provides a better description of a continually changing multi-dimensional illness.

[citation needed] Empirical and theoretical work on bipolar disorder has throughout history "seesawed" between psychological and biological ways of understanding.

Despite the work of Kraepelin (1921) emphasizing the psychosocial context, conceptions of bipolar disorder as a genetically based illness dominated the 20th century.