AP® Psychology · Unit 5 · Topic 5.4
Bipolar Disorders
Bipolar disorders involve cycles between depression and abnormally elevated mood. Bipolar I requires at least one full manic episode; Bipolar II involves only hypomania, a milder high, alongside major depressive episodes.
A manic episode is not just a good mood. It's a distinct period of abnormally elevated, expansive, or irritable mood combined with symptoms like a reduced need for sleep, racing thoughts, pressured speech, and impulsive decisions — spending sprees, risky sex, rash business moves. What makes it a disorder is the damage: these episodes impair relationships, jobs, and finances, or require hospitalization to keep the person safe. Feeling unstoppable counts as a symptom because the feeling drives behavior that stops working.
Bipolar I and Bipolar II are separated by how high that elevated episode climbs. Bipolar I requires at least one full manic episode — severe enough on its own to count, even if depression never follows (though it usually does). Bipolar II never reaches full mania; instead the person has hypomania, a milder, shorter elevated state that doesn't wreck functioning the way mania does, paired with at least one major depressive episode. So Bipolar II is not a 'lesser' bipolar in general severity — the depressive episodes can be just as serious — it's specifically the manic side that stays capped at hypomania.
This distinguishes bipolar disorder from ordinary moodiness: everyday mood swings don't involve the sustained, symptom-packed, functionally impairing episodes that define mania or hypomania, and they don't follow the extended cyclical course bipolar disorder does. Placed next to the depressive disorders earlier in this unit, bipolar disorders share the depressive episodes but add this elevated pole, which is why clinicians separate the two categories.
Key terms
- Manic episode
- A sustained period of abnormally elevated mood, high energy, and reduced sleep need that causes significant impairment or risk.
- Hypomania
- A milder, shorter elevated mood episode that doesn't severely impair functioning, defining Bipolar II.
- Bipolar I disorder
- A bipolar disorder diagnosis requiring at least one full manic episode.
- Bipolar II disorder
- A bipolar disorder diagnosis involving hypomania and at least one major depressive episode, with no full mania.
- Major depressive episode
- A period of persistent low mood and loss of interest alongside other symptoms that impair daily functioning.
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