Bipolar disorder (BD) is a condition that is strongly affected by stress. Episodes of mania and depression can be triggered by significant life events, severe family conflicts, turbulent relationships and situations that disrupt sleep/wake rhythms.
Therapy can help you cope with the stress from the external factors, manage your symptoms and improve your relationships.
Family-focused therapy (FFT) includes both the person with BD and their parents, spouse, or other family members. FFT typically lasts about 12 sessions (depending on the family’s needs) given by a single therapist. Early sessions focus on education about the condition: its symptoms and how they cycle over time, its causes, how to recognize the early warning signs of new episodes, and what to do as a family to prevent the episodes from getting worse. Later sessions focus on communication and problem solving skills, especially to address family conflicts.
IPSRT is an individual therapy in which you will keep daily records of your bed times, wake times, and activities, and the effects of changes in these routines on yourr moods. Our experts coaches you on how to regulate your daily routines and sleep-wake cycles as a way to stabilize moods.
An individual therapy focused on the relationship between a person's thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Our experts will teach you to:
Identify negative assumptions and thinking patterns, and challenge yourself to rehearse more adaptive ways of thinking.
Monitor your activity levels to make sure you are engaged with rewarding aspects of your environment when depressed, and are not overly stretched when manic.
Our experts teaches mindfulness and acceptance skills, such as the ability to experience moment-to-moment thoughts, emotions and their accompanying physical sensations from an observer’s stance, without negative judgment. We also teach distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness.