Resilience

Resilience

Resilience is a subject of interest mainly limited in the past to the field of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It has long been noticed that in selected populations exposed to a severe or prolonged trauma (such as war), only some people will eventually develop PTSD . These persons who do not do so are postulated as having factors, some of which have been suggested to be certain personality traits and their combinations (low anxiety and neuroticism, high extraversion and openness to experience) . Other authors have described posttraumatic growth or the experience of enhanced psychological well-being after traumatic experiences .

If mood episodes in bipolar disorder can be conceptualized as discrete traumata then each recovery from a mood episode can be seen as an opportunity for post-traumatic growth. One study reports that patients with bipolar disorder who were previously diagnosed with PTSD and exposed to a new traumatic experience had a lower prevalence of new PTSD symptoms compared to patients without a history of PTSD . How individuals respond to mood episodes, whether by psychological PTSD-like worsening or by resilient psychological growth from the traumatic experience of a mood episode itself, has not been studied. Available research in bipolar disorders and PTSD has examined the relationships between exposure to trauma, bipolar spectrum disorder and PTSD, focusing mainly on negative clinical correlates focusing mainly on negative clinical correlates . Outcomes commonly explored include traumatic assaults, sexual abuse, comorbid alcohol dependence, manic episodes, psychotic symptoms, development of PTSD, poor social adjustment and response to treatment. Measurements for positive outcomes after traumatic exposures in samples of patients with bipolar disorder are excluded. it is possible that some resilient persons may actually benefit in the long term from multiple mood episodes by being able to better cope with other important life stresses.