And almost half therefore do not...
These studies are bullshit..

Philip, if alternative folks were making claims like this and using the same small sample size, they would be literally crucified. But yet, it is ok for psychiatry to do this.


This hypocrisy is what I hate the most about the psychiatry profession. (Note, this does not mean I am antipsychiatry).

This sounds a lot like it might be more about the sense of entitlement that is just rampant in our society right now, especially among children of parents wealthy enough to afford taking them for a psych evaluation, than it is about any "brain disease." Even the aforementioned parents have a sense of entitlement preventing them from realizing that family dysfunction can have a lot to do with their child's problems; they feel entitled not to be blamed in any way, shape or form for what's going on with their kids. Now I don't want to say that it's all the parents' fault because I honestly think kids have problems now for reasons that extend far beyond their parents' behavior but it is one place to start to ameliorate the issues.

Since one of the symptoms of purported bipolar disorder is "appearing normal" between "episodes," and most doctors follow the once diagnosed never undiagnosed model, this news that psychiatry admits that some child "bipolars" don't grow into adult "bipolars" actually helps weaken the child bipolar argument as well as the entire bipolar paradigm. And of course doping up a child during his formative years precludes any possibly of the child developing normal impulse control, not to mention the fact that being told you have a chemical imbalance in your brain that makes it impossible for you to control your moods, makes it unlikely you will learn impulse control even if you are "normal."

Barbara Geller is an original key player at Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation and the parent forum *where I was banned for saying my daughter reacted negatively to Zoloft*.

She emailed me once and told me that the way to find out if a child is bp is to give them antidepressants. (this was in 2000).

It certainly seems that Biederman, Wozniak et al are in good company. Pals and partners in the "prevention of early childhood bipolar"; you know the more I think about it---this parent forum was more influential than my daughter's doctors.

They had a medical board where you could ask questions, and they heavily promoted the standard 3 med cocktail for kids, Depakote (a mood stabilizer),an antipsyhotic (Zyprexa back then)and an antidepressant. These were the days before NOT ONE of these drugs were approved by the FDA for use in kids, and we know the FDA validates pediatric bp due to approving Abilify and Risperdal.

Somehow, I feel doubly-duped by this crowd. I bet my daughter would too if she could read this and type!!!!

Oh, if only my principals had listened to me about which teachers ought to be fired. But come to think of it, my teachers let me grade my own tests fairly often. What's the problem here, exactly?

I forgot to add that CABF DID influence my daughter's psych back then, because they promoted "the best researchers" for childhood bp, "cutting edge" and abstracts from the likes of professional advisory board members such as Biederman were handy for print off, and some of them I took directly to the psych, who then would agree with the treatment "plan" CABF promoted, afterall PEER REVIEWED WAS THE ONLY WAY TO GO CABF SAID.

A decade later, nothing has changed, no cures (as they promised, even blood tests were touted)and now the only thing different is more kids are being dx'd and drugged at far younger ages.

I just read the whole paper and here are my problems with it.

1) Low maternal warmth was the strongest predictor of "mania" relapse and of episode duration.

2) A huge number of the "adult" (18+) particpants had "ultra-radian" cycling which is NOT a feature of classical adult Bipolar.
In effect, they told us, we have a controversial defintion of Bipolar that is controversial because it lacks validity -- 44% of the participants still had this controversial definition of mania when they happen to be 18 -- child BP is continuous with adult disorder. Wait, um, NO!
Granted, Geller uses what she thinks is a "conservative" definition including at least 1 cardinal symptom, elation or grandiosity -- but in children, the characterization of those behaviors is precisely what is so "contentious".

4) She tells nothing about comorbidity. Tells us it will be published later. PTSD not assessed apparently.

5) Very importantly, 18 is an awful age to characterize as "adult" but good enough for her because she says at this age adolescents can vote, go into the armed services etc. These adolescents are in high school (or not) and on the brink of major life transitions. For kids with the deck already stacked against them, this is a cruel age to assess mood episodes and equate ( read: conflate) with lifelong bipolar disorder. Especially considering these are the participants with the apparently least warm mothers/caretakers.

This study was in many respects lazy. It was certainly incomplete. She came to an innapropriate conclusion without publishing all her data.

"ultradian cycling" bipolar is not the adult disorder. What she means to draw from her own data is that they still qualify for the pediatic criteria ( hers) when they happen to be 18 or older.

Im gonna take a break now before my eyeballs explode out of my head.

This paper will be eaten apart.

If anyone wants to read really great descriptions of child BP phenomenology go to google.com type in: Bessel van der Kolk Developmental Trauma Disorder.

this type of study troubles me. I have an issue with early childhood diagnosis of mental illness. There is so much that children do as they develop. To put a label on them at such an early age is not good. We can barely diagnose this stuff on adults that can only give very subjective evidence of their symptoms. Now we are relying on a parent or teacher or whatever to tell us how Suzy acts then label her for life.

We need to take a step back on this with children. I know there are extreme situations, but I think for the most part we are making a mistake.

Here I have decided to have a study -
"80% of all child diagnosis are made with little or know good evidence."

"Manic children may commandeer a classroom, correct their own papers, or think they're entitled to tell their principals which teachers ought to be fired, Geller said."

Wow, that sounds just like the gourmet children the yuppies in my town have. You know, the ones who require expensive mollycoddling, lacrosse, transportation right to their door (one pricey housing development even insists the local cops be present every day when their little darlings tumble off the bus--too bad if my house burns down then, I won't be getting a cop until those gourmet kids are safely inside their trophy houses) etc., etc.--all at the taxpayers expense, of course.

I'm not kidding. A massive sense of entitlement might indicate a narcissistic personality but how does it relate to bi-polar???

Sherry,
You've stressed what I was thinking and I agree with Matt.
"Manic children may commandeer a classroom, correct their own papers, or think they're entitled to tell their principals which teachers ought to be fired, Geller said."

I'm coping again because I cannot understand how on earth can it indicate mania!

Is it me or is it a complete absurd statement?

As far as firing teachers I remember quite well in my adolescence that we were very critical about teachers and I'm sure that those who were not good, the "judgment" was always unanimous, I would fire them today.

I think children have better giving papers full of mistakes because if they make a good one it will be known that he/she made corrections which is an obvious sign of... mania!