Bipolar Disorder and the Medicalization of Mood: An Epidemics of Diagnosis?

In the last years, United States have had a strong increase in the consumption of pharmaceuticals for the treating of anxiety, bipolar disorder and depression (Loe, 2008). This ‘medicalization of the emotions’ is just a part of of a larger process of medicalization of everydaylife which encompasses many dimensions: sexuality, physical and psychical performance, birth, death, aging, prevention (Conrad, 2007). The growth of medicalization is fueled by many forces, not only economic ones. The American culture, with its emphasis on the pursuit of happiness and on pragmatism, may push to use psychotropic drugs: a quick and easy answer to sadness. Yet, the emphasis on the biological aspects of mental disorders vanish any links between the socio-economic context and mental and physical health. The main consequence of this trend is the individualization of social problems and the de-politicitazion of health policy. The last versions of the DSM (III and IV), putting symptoms before causes, seem to be parts of the same pattern. Indeed, the “syndromization” of the DSM lowers the threshold above which someone may get a disgnosis of bipolarism. In this scenario, it is not surprising that the diagnosis for bipolar disorder increase fastly. The big numbers of ads of pharmaceuticals contributes to enlarge the pathological-area (sickscape) in which a person will consider him-herself as affected by a disorder of the mood.