Mood Disorders

Depression and mania are the key emotions in mood disorders. Depression is a low, sad state in which life seems dark and its challenges overwhelming. Mania, the opposite of depression, is a state of breathless euphoria, or the least frenzied energy, in which people may have an exaggerated belief that the world is theirs for the taking. Most people with a mood disorder suffer only from depression, a pattern called unipolar depression. They have no history of mania and return to a normal or nearly normal mood when their depression is lifted.
Others experience periods of mania that alternate with periods of depression, a pattern called bipolar disorder. One might logically expect a third pattern of mood disorder, unipolar mania, in which people suffer from mania only, but this pattern is uncommon. Some experts even doubt its existence, except when it is brought on by a medical condition.
Mood disorders have always captured people's interest, in part because so many famous people have suffered from them. The Bible speaks of the severe depressions of Nebuchadnezzar, Saul, and Moses. Queen Victoria of England and Abraham Lincoln seem to have experienced recurring depressions. Mood disorders also have plagued such writers as Ernest Hemingway, Eugene O'Neill, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. Their mood problems have been shared by millions , and today the economic costs amount to more than $40 billion each year.