Dr. Stephen Hinshaw on World Bipolar Day: “My passion is for communication, science, treatment, and making human stories about bipolar disorder readily accessible”
World Bipolar Day
The vision of WBD is to bring world awareness to bipolar disorders and eliminate social stigma
Each year on the date of artist Vincent van Gogh’s birthday, March 30th, a group of organizations including the International Bi-Polar Foundation, declare a World Bipolar Awareness Day. Van Gogh suffered from mental illness throughout his life and was posthumously diagnosed as probably having a bipolar condition.
Both depression and bipolar disorder are mental illnesses that affect mood. But unlike depression, with bipolar disorder folks experience episodes of depression and episodes of mania — or a less-severe form of mania called hypomania. An episode of depression in bipolar disorder is the same as other types of depression, while mania is an unusually high mood or irritability for the person, often accompanied by excessive energy. Episodes of depression or mania generally last for a period of time, though a small number of people with bipolar disorder may experience episodes that change quickly.
You can find out more about bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses at the Canadian Mental Health Association online at cmha.ca.
New directions in bipolar disorder research, treatment and care
CREST.BD empowers communities to engage in bipolar disorder research
A University of British Columbia-based group called CREST.BD is researching the psycho-social issues associated with bipolar disorder. The Collaborative Research Team to Study Psychosocial Issues in Bipolar Disorder…or CREST.BD for short…uses a pioneering participatory approach.
Researchers, healthcare providers, and perhaps most importantly, people who live with bipolar disorder and their allies, work together to improve health and quality of life in people with bipolar disorder. CREST.BD empowers communities to engage in bipolar disorder research.
Dr. Stephen Hinshaw
Dr. Stephen Hinshaw is a network member at CREST.BD. He is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Department Chair from 2004-2011. He is also Professor of Psychiatry and Vice-Chair for Child and Adolescent Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Hinshaw received his B.A. from Harvard (summa cum laude) and, after directing school programs and residential summer camps, his doctorate in clinical psychology from UCLA, before serving as a post-doc at the Langley Porter Institute of UC San Francisco.
Stephen’s work focuses on developmental psychopathology, clinical interventions with children and adolescents (particularly mechanisms underlying therapeutic change), and mental illness stigma. He has directed summer research programs and conducted clinical trials and longitudinal studies for boys and (more recently) for girls with inattention and impulse-control problems, along with many comorbid disorders, having received over $20 million in NIH funding. He has been Principal Investigator of the Berkeley site for the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) since 1992.
Stephen has been featured regularly in the media, including the New York Times, the Today Show, the CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, and many more.
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