Goal

The goal of Session 2 is to introduce patients to the concept of bipolar disorders and to dispel the numerous myths about it, stressing the biological nature of the disorder and attempting to overcome its social stigma.

From the point of view of a hospital-based practice, we tend to think that our own opinion regarding mental illness, in this case bipolar disorder, is probably the one most widely held by society as a whole. Nothing could be further from the truth. Generally speaking, the general public is extremely unaware of the origins and natures of psychiatric disorders. For many of our patients, what we will say in this session is going to be rather surprising. It will revolutionize their lives and change the way they understand their disorder and, consequently, the way they understand themselves as individuals.

Session 2 is often very effective in combating the feelings of guilt that a lot of our patients feel, especially the ones that arise from a strictly psychologistic focus or come directly from dynamic orientation treatments.

Procedure

• We begin the session, as we always do, with a warm-up phase, where we can simply ask patients how their week was, go over any questions they might have about the guidelines given in Session 1, joke around (“Are you up for this?”), and repeat the name game (see p. 59). This way the mood in the room will be pleasant when we begin the session.

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