“We know now from the science that a large degree of how people fare over time is dictated by psychological and social factors—how strong their social support network is, how well they deal with stigma, do they have a strong sense of identity or a healthy spiritual life,” she says.
“Many of them talked about medications, but many of them also talked about things that would have been seen as peripheral research areas until quite recently,” Michalak says. For example, “Mindfulness practices might have been seen as a fringe area of science. Now mindfulness-based approaches have credence in bipolar science.”
Science has also been generating solid evidence about the benefits of cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and other psychotherapies, both alongside and independent of medication. One of the most influential developments since bp Magazine began publishing is a treatment approach called interpersonal and social rhythm therapy (IPSRT).
In fact, the understanding that people with bipolar are especially susceptible to disruptions in daily routine, and therefore benefit greatly from establishing structure in their lives, has become gospel since the seminal study on IPSRT was published in 2005.