Psychosocial intervention as the additional therapy for bipolar affective disorder: a case report

Psychosocial interventions have been shown to enhance pharmacotherapy outcomes in bipolar affective disorder (BAD). This article describes an application of psychosocial intervention as the additional therapy for BAD. In this case report we present the course of illness, psychological features and specific chronic stress of a patient with BAD. Following the recent guidelines, we applied the pharmacotherapy together with an adjuvant psychosocial treatment (psycho-education, supportive and psychodynamic therapy). Psycho-education was used to inform patient and family members about the disorder, course of illness and treatment. Supportive therapy helped the patient to deal with her illness and deepened her understanding of her present problems. Psychodynamic psychotherapy was used to examine the meanings of unconscious conflicts and the ways the stressor activates the patient's deeply repressed traumatic experiences. This case study indicates that psychosocial treatment applied as adjuvant therapy of pharmacotherapy in the treatment of BAD may result in symptom remission, improvement of life quality and illness relapse prevention.