Bipolar Treatment with Art and Music

• ARTICLE

Internationally known visual artist Derek Hess uses his personal struggle with bipolar and alcoholism to creatively express the raw intensity of the human experience. If ever there were a way to tap into the human psyche and lay it bare for all to see, celebrated visual artist Derek Hess has found the key. Indeed, the...

• ARTICLE

During a hospitalization, an entrepreneur with bipolar disorder discovers how music can create a shared community and a way forward in difficult times. As a touring musician in my 20s, I enjoyed many wonderful times. But as I look back, it’s actually a sing-along in a mental health clinic that to this day is the...

• ARTICLE

Recent research is yielding insights into the links between bipolar disorder and creativity—and not just artistic accomplishment, but also innovative thinking and entrepreneurship.   Author Virginia Woolf saw her artistry and her mood extremes as being inextricably linked. In a letter to a friend in 1930, she wrote of her “madness” that “in its lava,...

• BLOG

At times it may be difficult to remain optimistic with a bipolar diagnosis, but glimpses of hope exist if you keep your eyes and ears open. As both an entrepreneur and a touring musician, my twenties provided many moments of privilege. But as I look back, it’s actually a sing-along in a mental health clinic...

• ARTICLE

After finding himself in a nonfiction writing course shortly after his bipolar diagnosis, one young man discovers the cathartic power of personal narrative. By Vincent Scarpa   A month after my first manic episode, I found myself in an undergraduate nonfiction writing workshop. Which was odd, as what I had gone to college to write...

• ARTICLE

Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD returns to the topic of how mania, depression and creativity connect in her latest book about the poet Robert Lowell.   It’s impossible to summarize the achievements of Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD. Instead, a few highlights: Holder of an endowed professorship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Inspirational role...

• ARTICLE

One man’s story about his passion for writing, his fear of medicating his mood, and keeping his creativity I tiptoed into the packed, dimly lit performance studio for my first ever spoken word poetry event. My eyes adjusted quickly and my ears opened to a deep, booming voice: “When you and I tango, winter smiles.” Around the room, the audience swayed....

• BLOG

Music allows me to remember and even relive the better parts of who I was in times of stability––it’s a vital part of the plan I have to manage my moods. My iTunes crashed.   Not only that, my CD player is broken. It’s been months since I’ve made a fresh tape. Buzzkill!     ‘Fresh’ doesn’t...

• ARTICLE

Director and screenwriter Paul Dalio’s feature film takes a hard and gritty look at love, mania, creative inspiration, and making peace with bipolar. After Paul Dalio was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he struggled to understand what it meant. Was he irretrievably broken, or should he welcome mania as a gift granting heightened creativity? Would taking...

• VIDEO

Watch the trailer for the new movie by director and screenwriter, Paul Dalio. His feature film, starring Katie Holmes, takes a hard and gritty look at love, mania, creative inspiration, and making peace with bipolar. This dramedy stars Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby as a couple, both living with bipolar disorder, who meet in a psychiatric hospital...

• BLOG

Many people with bipolar disorder are gifted with extraordinary creativity but what happens when the creative well runs dry? By Beth Brownsberger Mader   I suddenly thought of this topic while doing my morning yoga sun salutations. I was bending over, palms to the floor, observing through sleepy eyes my dusty area rug, pondering nothing....

• BLOG

There’s something about music that is just naturally therapeutic. It’s always been there for me, and I can always turn to it when I need a mood adjustment. “A tired mind become a shape-shifter Everybody need a mood lifter Everybody need reverse polarity Everybody got mixed feelings About the function and the form Everybody got...

• BLOG

Let your personal vision board filled with your hopes, dreams, aspirations, and goals inspire you in the upcoming months. It’s common to do it during the first couple weeks of January. Even the end of January. But I say, humbug to common practice! I say do it any time of the year. You can do...

• ARTICLE

Wendy interprets her moods and memories through the lens of her camera.   By Robin L. Flanigan   In some of her photographs, North Carolina shutterbug Wendy spotlights a Chevrolet Bel Air that reminds her of the older-model cars her grandparents drove when she was a little girl. She sees a connection between one picture...

• ARTICLE

For Shelby Tweten, the TV talent show ‘American Idol’ became a national springboard to fight stigma By Linda Childers   When Shelby Tweten sang “Temporary Home” at the American Idol auditions, she brought pop diva Jennifer Lopez to tears. There’s something fitting about that, because music has always been Shelby’s outlet for oversized emotions she...

• BLOG

Writing is incredibly therapeutic for me––regardless of whether it is beautiful poems of just a mish-mash of words. It helps me look back on the scope of my journey, and gives me hope for the future. I’ve been writing a blog for bp for two years. Over this time I’ve touched on a number of...

• BLOG

Undiagnosed bipolar, and later dealing with bipolar itself, kept me from realizing my full potential as an artist. I am a highly trained visual artist. In fact, twenty-one years ago, I earned my master’s degree in printmaking & drawing from a good university, which qualifies me to teach at the college level, to place the...

• BLOG

In my experience, melody and movement represent two of the most therapeutic and yet misunderstood and underutilized resources when it comes to treating bipolar disorder. Over the years, plenty of mental health providers have recommend a healthy diet and exercise as vital components of my treatment plan. None, however, has ever recommended music. In fact,...

• BLOG

When I’m faced with stigmatizing, demeaning comments from others I’ve found no better outlet for the negative emotions they inspire than art. Last week, I wrote an editorial for CNN’s belief blog about the hatred and bigotry faced by Muslim Americans these days. I’m used to receiving nasty comments on many of my pieces (though,...

• ARTICLE

Never deny the power of music and how it can improve your mood and ease your mind. I was about 14 when I had my first screaming, flailing, world-turned-upside-down terror attack. Sitting in the bedroom of my parents’ GI Bill house, I felt a bolt of noxious energy turn the air around me grainy, as...