Mary Fristad Recorded Webinar: Evidence Based Treatment of Bipolar Disorder in Youth (DOES NOT OFFER CE CREDIT)

Original Air Date: May 27, 2016

Abstract

Until recently, bipolar disorder was rarely diagnosed in youth. Now diagnostic rates have exploded and “bipolar” is the most common diagnosis for psychiatrically hospitalized youth. There is concern that bipolar disorder is being over-diagnosed and over-medicated in children. Fortunately, there has been a surge of evidence about the validity of carefully diagnosed bipolar in youths, along with better evidence-based tools for assessment and treatment. This mini-workshop provides a brief overview of evidence-based assessment of bipolar disorder in youth and available biological interventions, emphasizing what non-prescribing clinicians need to know about these treatments. The majority of the mini-workshop focuses on how to conceptualize comprehensive care and delineates specific therapeutic techniques. Therapeutic techniques taught come from the individual-family and multi-family versions of psychoeducational psychotherapy (IF-PEP, MF-PEP), one of the most promising evidence-based approaches to managing mood disorders in youth. Treatment techniques include: learning about the disorder and its treatment, differentiating the child from the disorder, building emotion regulation “tool kits,” CBT fundamentals, problem solving, verbal and nonverbal skill enhancement, improving “healthy habits” (sleep hygiene, eating and exercise), navigating the mental health and school systems to build more effective treatment teams, changing maladaptive family patterns, and specific symptom management strategies.