Because bipolar disorder affects a child’s mind as well as his mood, affects development, and affects the parent and the family it needs to be treated psychotherapeutically as well as pharmacologically. Finding your way among the different treatments and the professionals who practice them can be confusing and upsetting. You should expect and ask for help in this process—from a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, an educator, and from other parents who have experience. Available resources will vary from one place to another, and you may need to travel for an expert opinion regarding one or another facet of your child’s treatment. Find knowledgeable people who pay attention to you and your child, over time. In most cases there will need to be more than one person helping you. It is important that these people communicate with each other, but you will be the center of the team, holding it together with your attention, your questions, and your knowledge of your child.
Initial Evaluation
The suggestion that your child may suffer from bipolar disorder may come from a pediatrician or neurologist, a therapist, an educator, another parent, or your own experience with the disorder. The evaluation of that suggestion needs to be done by a Child Psychiatrist experienced in the evaluation and treatment of bipolar disorder in children. There are several ways to find such a person:
- If you are living in a metropolitan area with one or more University Hospitals there will be specialists nearby. Someone in your network may be experienced enough to give you a referral. A referral from someone you know will often include knowledge of the psychiatrist that goes beyond credentials and hospital affiliation.
- If no one in your network can help you—or the suggestions you received have proved inadequate—the internet is the quickest way to find people who have experience and the names of accomplished psychiatrists. Some web sites are:
The Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation
National Alliance for Mental Illness
National Institute for Mental Health
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA)
Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation - You can contact the Department of Child Psychiatry at a major university hospital. Even if you do not see someone at that center you can find someone to make a competent referral. Some of the hospitals with leading clinicians in Child Bipolar Disorder are:
East Coast
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Child Psychiatry
Massachusetts General Hospital, Child Psychiatry 617-724-5600
Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, State University of New York at Stony Brook N.Y. — Gabriele Carlson, MD, Psychiatry, SUNY Putnam Hall Room 103, Stony Brook, NY 1794-8790. Ph.: 631-632-8850
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Philadelphia, Pa. (215) 590-7573
Virginia Treatment Center for Children, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 804) 828-3129
Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders ProgramMid-West
Children’s Memorial Hospital, 2300 Children’s Plaza, Chicago, Illinois 60614-3394. Ph. 773.880.4000 or 1.800.KIDS DOC
Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago, Il (312) 942-5592
Pediatric Bipolar Program at Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati, OH (513) 558-0956
The Stanley Research Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio (216) 844-3881
Washington University Child Psychiatry Clinic at Children’s Hospital, St. Louis, Mo (314) 286-1740West Coast
Stanford Pediatric Mood Disorders Clinic, Stanford University of Medicine (650) 723-5511
31 Adolescent Mood Disorders Program, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, Los Angeles, CA.In contacting one of these departments a psychiatrist or pediatrician you work with may be able to make the contact more easily. Doctors have an easier time getting to speak to Doctors.
Finding A Therapist
- As in finding a psychiatrist, a referral from someone you know may be based on more direct information about the clinician.
- The web sites listed above can also serve as referral sources for therapists. In addition, the American Group Psychotherapy Association and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Support Groups
Joining a local support group is one of the best ways to learn about nearby clinicians, medications, resources, problems and solutions other families have found, and to make the kind of personal contacts that are most important over the long haul. The Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation is an excellent source in locating one near you.
On-Line Blogs
On-line discussions about bipolar disorder are a source of information about other people’s experiences. Although they can contain misinformation, they can also provide a view of bipolar disorder and its treatments not available in published material. I use them to learn about side-effects people have with medications that I may not have seen or heard about from colleagues.
Reading
FOR A POPULAR AUDIENCE
The Bipolar Child, Dimitri Papalos M.D. and Janice Papalos (2002): Dr. Papalos provides a wealth of detailed information about diagnosis, scientific understanding, and resources needed at various stages of treatment of bipolar disorder in children.
Surviving Manic Depression, A Manual on Bipolar Disorder For Patients, Families, And Providers (2002): A comprehensive source of information—scientific, clinical, and practical. Dr. Torrey is a leading authority and an excellent writer.
Acquainted With The Night: A Parent’s Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children, Paul Raeburn: An account of the author’s harrowing struggle to understand the disorder which afflicted his two children (a boy and girl) very differently, and which fractured his family. Mr. Raeburn’s account of his experiences contains information about resources in a context that unmistakably defines their value.
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Mood and Madness, (1995) Kay Redfield Jameson, M.D.: A brilliant writer, psychologist, psychiatrist, and an international authority on bipolar disorder, Dr. Jameson gives an account of her struggle to recognize, master, and accept pharmacologic treatment for Bipolar Disorder. An unmatchable account of this disease from someone who knows it personally and scientifically.
Night Falls Fast, Understanding Suicide, (1999) Kay Redfield Jameson, M.D.: Dr. Jameson looks at the histories of and the psychological states that result in suicide, using her personal and clinical experience and her understanding to portray this problem and the measures that are needed to contend with it.
SCIENTIFIC WORK
Bipolar Disorder in Childhood and Early Adolescence, (2006) Barbara Geller M.D.: Dr. Geller is a leading physician and scientist in the field of bipolar disorder in children. Her book is the most recent and highly regarded scientific account of bipolar disorder in children.
The Dissociative Mind, (2005) Elizabeth Howell, Ph.D.: Dr. Howell’s detailed study of dissociation as it occurs along the spectrum from normalcy to severe trauma explains an area of psychology that is just beginning to be understood. Her book provides an importantly different way of looking at the mental states found in many different disorders.