A New Approach to Diagnosing Early Onset Bipolar Disorder: Fear of Harm Syndrome

I  came across this article just recently when I was browsing the Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation website.  A group of researchers, including Dr. Demitri Papolos who wrote the "bible" about childhood bipolar disorder (The Bipolar Child),  has come to define a new "phenotype" of bipolar disorder in kids, particularly in the most severe forms.  They feel that the present DSM description of bipolar disorder in children does not exactly fit what they feel is an underlying disorder, which they have named "Fear of Harm Syndrome."  Now, I am not going to go into the full explanation of this article with all of its fine points because this article is not in easy to understand language, but in very technical language as they are speaking to the world of psychiatry.  So I will refer you to the article itself so that you can read it several times, like I needed to, in order to grasp what they are saying.  This Fear of Harm phenotype describes  many of our kids better, apparently, than the present DSM IV categories.  You can find this research summary at www.jbrf.org/research/phenotype.html.   I am just glad that research continues towards the goal of eventually finding a cure.  Please support JBRF and CABF, and NAMI if you can as they are the beacons of light in the dark world of mental illness.