Social cognition and emotion regulation in bipolar disorder treatment

Bipolar Outline

Effects of social cognition / object representation / psychotherapy (Ackerman, et al., 2000)

This research attempts to assess the number of psychotherapy sessions needed for a bipolar patient -- knowing this assists in interventions

patients were assessed in this study and the Rorschach MOA PATH score plus two SCORES variables were used, and show correctly the number of sessions patients require

Knowing how many sessions a patient will attend indicates who will benefit from the psychotherapy session… higher scores on the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale PATH and lower on the SCORS suggests more psychotherapy will be needed

Cognitive Vulnerability-stress perspective / bipolar adolescents (Alloy, et al., 2006).

Bipolar disorder effects 1.5% of the U.S. workforce, and it is a severe, recurring or even constant disorder that causes "significant impairment" and can lead to divorce and to personal crises (suicide, substance abuse)

Knowing which adolescents are at risk for bipolar is advantageous because adolescents are in the "hazard period" between ages 15 and 19

Females tend to show bipolar signs through depressive periods while males tend to reflect hypomania/mania

THREE: Responsible behavior: importance of social cognition and emotion (Bear, et al., 2003).

The importance of responsible behavior is emphasized; good behavior is linked to social cognition which helps children "perceive a need to act responsibly"

Emotions play a huge role in children knowing to exhibit prosocial behavior...

FOUR: Emotion regulation in bipolar adolescents and children (Dickstein, et al., 2006)

The symptoms that children and adolescents display (anger, bad temper, annoyed when there is no apparent reason, being crabby and sassy) give researchers strong clues as to whether bipolar is episodic or chronic

Lacewing references 5 authors that discuss the development of emotional theories

It is clear there is nothing close to consensus when it comes to comparing emotion with cognition or defining exactly when an emotion results from cognition

EIGHT: Cognitive processing in bipolar disorder (BD) using ICS model (Lomax, et al., 2009).

30 bipolar persons and 30 healthy persons were tested (in a euthymic mood state and also in induced positive mood state) to see if they detected discrepancies in the sentences; the results show BD people operate at a "more abstract level"

NINE: Deficits in social cognition & response flexibility in pediatric BD (McClure, et al., 2005)

40 outpatients with pediatric BD and 22 healthy people were tested for social cognition, inhibition and response flexibility; results showed that the pediatric BD patients performed "more poorly" than non-BD people on social-cognitive measures (language, facial expressions and recognition of others' facial expressions), and on tasks that required responses and flexibility

TEN: Long-term effects of emotion on cognition (Moore, et al., 2002).

While researchers have investigated and determined that mood and emotion help determine and modulate human cognition, there is a need to examine how performance on certain tasks changes over time

Events with lots of emotion are more memorable; hence, if mood has an effect on long-term memory, it also may well have an impact on the ability to learn long-term