Hypomania, Praise, and Self-Talk

Photo thanks to Gustavo Espíndola

The praise came. Kitt loved to please. The more praise she received, the better she felt. The more she achieved, the higher she soared, until she couldn’t. Her body couldn’t keep up. She broke down, couldn’t get out of bed, and beat herself up for falling, for failing.

Talking to Yourself in the Third Person Can Help You Control Stressful Emotions

The simple act of silently talking to yourself in the third person during stressful times may help you control emotions without any additional mental effort than what you would use for first-person self-talk – the way people normally talk to themselves.

• Talking to Yourself in the Third Person Can Help You Control Stressful Emotions. MSU Today. July 26, 2017.
• Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. Scientific Reports 7. Article number: 4519(2017). doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04047-3.

Role of Reward Sensitivity and Processing in Major Depressive and Bipolar Spectrum Disorders

blunted reward sensitivity and processing are involved in unipolar depression and heightened reward sensitivity and processing are characteristic of hypomania/mania

• Role of Reward Sensitivity and Processing in Major Depressive and Bipolar Spectrum Disorders. Behavior Therapy. 2016 Sep; 47(5): 600-621. doi: 10.1016/j.beth.2016.02.014.
• Common and Dissociable Dysfunction of the Reward System in Bipolar and Unipolar Depression. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2015 Aug; 40(9): 2258–2268. doi: 10.1038/npp.2015.75.
• Looking For Clues in Reward Circuits of Bipolar and Depressed Patients. The Quarterly. Spring 2015.