Will Cognitive Behaviour Therapy help with Bi-polar?

[The Girl Next Door]

Can anyone tell me what sort of success one might expect from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy as a treatment for bi-polar disorder? It seems to be a relatively new thing, so I am not sure how well it has worked with people suffering from these sorts of problems.

I thought that bi-polar disorder was more due to some sort of chemical imbalance, so I am worried that CBT will not really have any effect.

[SWM]

this is not my field of expertise but i have done a small ammount of self directed studying in this area.

from what i have picked up i would say cognitive therapy has most success with "mild to moderate" mental health problems, things like depression and anxiety disorders, agoraphobia and panic. while there are studies and practitioners that specialise in "severe and enduring" mental health problems such as schizophrenia and bi-polar.

form what i understand of cognitive therapy and bi-polar disorder, i cannot see how CBT could provide any lasting changes to the chemically derived factors of the disorder. i could see how cognitive therapy would help in maintaining stability by techniques for monitoring mood and thoughts   and recognising indicators of unstable episodes.

i will come back to this if have any more thoughts on the matter.

[Honesty]

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is designed to help us recognize the irrational thinking patterns and learn strategies to challenge those thoughts and thereby have a positive feedback effect on our moods.  In essence we are trying to retrain our thinking patterns back into more of a rational pattern.Cognitive behaviour therapy is commonly used to treat patients with depression.
The therapy is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (our emotions) and how we behave (behaviour), are all interconnected.  Basically the view that emotions cause our thought patterns is reversed by this therapy which maintains that irrational thoughts lead to negative emotions and moods, and thus behaviour.

[watson]

Cognitive behaviour therapy can help with any disorder. It is all a matter of when and how it is applied. If done correctly it should begin to help the client realize his wrongful behaviors and begin correcting them. So if it is applied correctly, then of course it can help.

[spring]

Psychological treatment of depression (psychotherapy) can assist the depressed individual in several ways. First, supportive counseling helps ease the pain of depression, and addresses the feelings of hopelessness that accompany depression.  Second, cognitive therapy changes the pessimistic ideas, unrealistic expectations, and overly critical self-evaluations that create depression and sustain it. Cognitive therapy helps the depressed person recognize which life problems are critical, and which are minor. It also helps him/her to develop positive life goals, and a more positive self-assessment. Third, problem solving therapy changes the areas of the person's life that are creating significant stress, and contributing to the depression. This may require behavioral therapy to develop better coping skills, or Interpersonal therapy, to assist in solving relationship problems.

[Social Work PD]

The concept of cognitive therapy has been around since ancient Greece, actually.  It got it's current name primarily by Albert Ellis who later developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.  CBT is evdinced-based and been found to be the number 1 treatment modality of mood and anxiety disorders.  There is also study-based evidence that it is also helpful with psychotic disorders.  Dialectal Behavior Therapy (DBT) which is the number 1 treatment modality for Borderline Personality Disorder, is based on CBT.  Actually, half of DBT is CBT. 

Bipolar disorder is biologically based, however, since it happens to humans, it is not pure biology.  There are many aspect of Bipolar that have more to do with learned behavior, thought patterns, and belief systems than with biology.  CBT is very beneficial for bipolar.  For one, it can help a person to stay on their mood stabilizers since people with bipolar are notorious for stopping their meds.  No meds, no bipolar control (in most cases).

I could go on and on about this topic, but that is the quick basics.

[docjp]

Can anyone tell me what sort of success one might expect from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy as a treatment for bi-polar disorder?

You can expect zero success. The only thing you can expect from CBT is directions to the bathroom, if it is directly next to where you receive the "help".

Peace

[docjp]

. ....cognitive therapy changes the pessimistic ideas, unrealistic expectations, and overly critical self-evaluations that create depression ...

So, you "think" that intellectual activities "create" depression? 

You apparently do not realize that depression is "caused" by an emotional-level conflict within a persons MIND realm?  What you are describing are "symptoms" of such a conflict... obvious, easily noted symptoms.  The persons "problem" is not the symptoms, but what "causes" these symptoms.  And nothing outside of the person is responsible for these symptoms.

Peace