Assessment of manic-depressive personalities within the bipolar spectrum.

Abstract

U sing a qualitative approach rooted in the European psychodynamic model of psychopathology and theoretical framework, I advocate for the existence of manic-depressive personality (MDP) as an identifiable type of psychic functioning. This model invites the reader to momentarily move away from the data-driven empiricism and specific psychometric methodology that dominate North American approaches to performance-based tests. The chapter includes a brief outline of the Lausanne School, a description of the journey that led from one specific response on the Rorschach to a research interest, and a presentation of the main results from two qualitative studies, the first carried out on a small group of patients with bipolar disorders (Chabot et al., 2003) and the second on a small group with MDP (Husain et al., 2006). I end the chapter with a structural approach to differential diagnosis.