Bipolar Today

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The BBC has put forward an interesting opinion piece about Winston Churchill. In it, they argue that, while Winston Churchill was probably not mentally ill, it was his passionate nature that allowed him to see the danger that the Nazis pose and avoid suing for peace like the rest of the establishment wished. They are responding to a recent book by Nassir Ghaemi (though they curiously do not mention the name of the book in the article), who argued that it was mental illness that allowed Winston Churchill to see past the conventions of his time and be willing to fight the Nazis. Both the BBC and Ghaemi agree that the “black dog” that Churchill claimed was a part of his life was important to his historical role, but they differ as to whether this should be considered mental illness. The full article can be found here

Commentary

I’ve started to notice a trend in the articles that I’ve been reading, especially those coming out of the BBC. It is the tendency to dismiss many bipolar diagnoses of bipolar disorder as being simply an American phenomenon of overdiagnosis, usually attributed to drug companies. Aside from this article, the same basic premise is behind Louis Theroux’s BBC’s “America’s Medicated Kids”. Even if one believes that bipolar disorder is overdiagnosed, that doesn’t mean that one should immediately doubt every diagnosis.

In the BBC article, the author states, “Nowadays we tend to interpret any type of character or behavior that departs from our standards of tepid normality as a symptom of some underlying disorder.” However, the “we” seems to be a reference to Americans like Ghaemi, not any “we” that includes the English. I’ve started to think of this phenomenon as the “bloody colonials” theory of bipolar disorder, whose basic thesis is that the increased rates of bipolar disorder is the result of overdiagnosis by bloody colonials.

Related posts:

1. Bipolar Disorder and Leadership: Nassir Ghaemi
2. Was Mary Todd Lincoln Bipolar?
3. Filipino Café Celebrates Bipolar Disorder
4. TV’s “Homeland” Has Bipolar Main Character
5. Carrie Fisher Discusses Addiction, Creativity