The number of people with bipolar disorder has risen three fold in the last two decades. Three percent of us, that’s nearly two million people in Britain today are thought to have this serious mental illness, but who are these people and what do they experience, what do they feel?
In this film we see psychotherapist Philippa Perry, explore the nature of this disorder in an attempt to better understand why so many of us seem to have it. Genetics, brain chemistry and life experience are all thought to play a part in this disorder but the exact causes of bipolar are still very much unknown.
Perry wants to get inside the minds of those living with extremes of manic highs and suicidal lows, what clues can be found in the lives of those who are living with the disorder and can a single an relative recent label really explain the range of symptoms experienced by two million people.
“unexpectedly high rate of bipolar affective disorder (80%) as a diagnosis and were, without exception, atypical in that they were resistant to conventional psychiatric treatment and lacked a family history for this disorder.”