Overcoming Bipolar Disorder: A Comprehensive Workbook for Managing Your Symptoms and Achieving Your Life Goals

This is the first trade book to present the authors' research-proven method for helping people living with bipolar disorder gain control of their disorder. The Life Goals Program (LGP) was developed by two of the authors, Mark Bauer and Linda McBride, and has undergone two clinical trials, with more ongoing. The LGP was designed to help the bipolar patient take charge of their disorder, rather than waiting passively for a health practitioner to stumble on the right treatment and tell the patient how to deal with the disorder. It includes a strong educational component, encouraging the person living with bipolar disorder to both learn about the disorder as well as explore their experiences with bipolar, including beliefs, first onset, triggers, cycles, feelings of stigma, effects of the disorder on social and spiritual aspects of life, and effective coping methods. Rather than creating a dichotomy where the person living with bipolar disorder is the passive patient and the health care provider (the author) is the expert, the LGP encourages the person living with bipolar disorder to become an expert on his or her disorder, and to take action in discovering what works and doesn't work in controlling the symptoms and coping with the effects of bipolar. This workbook is arranged in modules, each one beginning with an educational component that explains the topic at hand and its relation to bipolar (for example, what happens physiologically when the person living with bipolar disorder becomes depressed, or how and why bipolar people often turn to street drugs and alcohol to cope). It then provides a step-by-step, accessible, thorough group of tools and/or exercises to help the reader explore the topic using their own experience.