Types of mania in psychiatry: what is the danger and how to treat

There are different types of mania in psychiatry. Any manic state is accompanied by elevated mood, accelerated thinking, and motor agitation. This is the so-called triad of symptoms. It would seem that all of the listed qualities are positive, but until they are strongly developed, they can be called deviations.

Euphoria can give way to aggression, racing thoughts over time begin to interfere with speaking out and focusing on work, high physical activity is replaced by fussiness and poorly coordinated movements. But the person continues to consider his behavior absolutely normal...

Note!

Mania is not always dangerous. Some types of mania, on the contrary, make us special, for example, excessive love of music, strong passion for books, etc.

We can talk about the development of a mental disorder when a person’s behavior goes beyond socially accepted norms, whereas before that he was not characterized by looseness, recklessness, or excessive self-confidence.

Definition

In psychiatry, mania (manic state) is a mental disorder that is manifested by three signs: elevated mood, accelerated thinking and increased activity.

The people widely understand the word mania as “being overwhelmed by something,” which does not reflect the scientific definition of this term.

Mania is the complete opposite of depression, which is characterized by low mood, slower thinking, and decreased activity.

Mania (or manic state) is a painful condition that requires evaluation by a psychiatrist and treatment. An untreated manic state can reach the level of psychosis and even confusion, which is life-threatening.

Types of mania: hypochondria

People suffering from hypochondria, without reason, suspect that they have one or more serious diseases. Any bodily sensations - chills, goosebumps on the skin, sleep disturbance, abdominal pain, etc. – are perceived by them as symptoms and cause severe anxiety.

Even if, after undergoing an examination, their suspicions are not confirmed, they continue to turn to different specialists and self-medicate, blaming

Read this article on how to learn to live stress-free.

doctors are incompetent or unwilling to tell them about the real state of affairs. Concern for their own health deprives hypochondriacs of the opportunity to enjoy life, since the main place in their thoughts is occupied by worries about a non-existent illness.

Symptoms:

• a person is interested in medical literature and does not miss a single program about health; based on the information received, he makes diagnoses for himself;
• conversations with a hypochondriac revolve only around the topic of health, and less attention is paid to real diseases than to fictional ones;
• patients are confused in their complaints, leading doctors to make the necessary diagnosis, listing symptoms gleaned from medical literature;
• a person actively turns to doctors, often gets tested and unnecessarily undergoes the most unpleasant instrumental examinations, practices traditional methods, constantly asks friends if he looks sick;
• Suspecting that he has a specific disease, the hypochondriac begins to avoid actions that could aggravate his condition.

Causes of mania - hypochondria

About 15% of all patients visiting doctors are hypochondriacs.

Among them are mainly men over 25 years of age and women over 40. Most often, painful preoccupation with one’s health is the result of depression, mental disorder, usually neurosis or schizophrenia, or a phobia of contracting a fatal disease (cancer, AIDS, etc.).

Treatment

Milder forms of hypochondria are treated by psychologists and psychotherapists, while severe forms are treated by psychiatrists. If the fear of getting sick is associated with a depressed state, as a rule, when the emotional state improves, it disappears. Until this happens, a person is recommended to protect himself from information that gives rise to new experiences (stop watching medical programs and even advertising of medications), listen to or repeat affirmations before going to bed - verbal formulas of health (“I am healthy, and all my organs are working OK").

We looked at the most common types of mania. But this is enough to pay attention to your close relatives and friends in order to identify the disease in time and make a decision.

Causes

Mania is caused by the predominance of overexcitation processes in the brain, which triggers a cascade of complex physiological and chemical reactions in the nervous system, and, as a result, throughout the body.

Doctors identify several groups of causes for the development of mania:

1. Internal causes (endogenous). These include disorders of protein metabolism in the nervous system, immune disorders in brain tissue, genetic predisposition, hormonal disorders (during the postpartum period, menopause, adolescence).
2. Consequences of organic damage to the central nervous system due to injuries, poisoning, atrophic processes, neoplasms, impaired blood supply to the brain, etc.
3. Infections and poisoning.

Persecution mania: what is the danger?

The development of a mental disorder usually begins with the fact that a person misinterprets the phrase of a passerby - he hears a conversation that contains a threat, although in fact the speaker meant something completely different. In the patient’s imagination, the role of pursuers is usually family members, friends, colleagues, criminal gangs; in the severe stage, fictitious characters appear to him - vampires, aliens, etc. Real conflicts and dangerous situations rarely cause a disease that makes a person think that he is being persecuted in order to steal, harm, kill, deprive him of his mind, etc.

Symptoms:

• the person is convinced that he is being persecuted, he does not feel safe anywhere, and at the same time he clearly knows the motives of his ill-wishers - jealousy, envy, revenge;
• facial expressions, gestures, and intonation of others are interpreted as intentional actions against him;
• in order to hide from his pursuers, the patient isolates himself in the apartment, does not answer calls, and disguises himself;
• even when staying at home, a person cannot sit still (he rushes around the room); - the need for sleep is reduced, just two to three hours of rest recharges energy for the whole day;
• fear for one’s safety pushes a person into conflicts with others and rash actions; he can leave the city without warning anyone.

Doctors associate the development of persecution mania with disturbances in brain function: excitation centers are activated, and inhibition processes are disrupted. In other words, a person’s critical thinking decreases.

Persecutory mania can develop on its own, but most often it is a symptom of schizophrenia or paranoia.

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The risk group includes people whose parents suffered from any mental disorder, those who suffered an accident, those who abuse drugs (marijuana, cocaine) and substances with a psychostimulant effect (amphetamine), as well as patients with impaired cerebral vascular function. If you suspect that the strange behavior of a person close to you is associated with the development of manic disorder, you should seek advice from a psychiatrist.

Symptoms

Mania is characterized by an elevated mood, with a feeling of euphoria, lightness, “special clarity in the head,” a feeling that “everything is working out easily,” and optimism. Such people speak quickly and a lot, are “easy-going”, and look younger than their age. They easily form ideas of their own greatness, superiority and even power. Often because of this, they give up their usual activities (study, work, projects), leave their families, change their religion and even their appearance (dye their hair, have plastic surgery). Mania is always accompanied by hyperactivity: patients are restless, active, constantly busy with something, and do not feel tired. Sleep is disturbed: it shortens or stops altogether.

During a manic state, patients take out loans, commit irrational actions, make expensive purchases, and enter into marriages that quickly break up.

Psychotic mania (manic psychosis)

Mania can range in severity from hypomania to severe mania with psychotic symptoms.

Ideas of grandeur and heightened self-esteem can develop into delusions, and irritability and suspicion can develop into delusions of persecution. In severe cases, pronounced delusional ideas of greatness or noble origin are noted. As a result of racing thoughts and speech pressure, speech becomes incomprehensible.

Conditions similar to mania

Persecution mania is a type of delusion when false conclusions arise that cannot be dissuaded, the content of which is that there is targeted surveillance and pressure.

Megalomania is also a type of delusion (characteristic of mania), which consists in the fact that the sick person considers himself a great specialist, a “perfect person” with outstanding qualities.

Manic-depressive psychosis is a separate disease, which is characterized by alternating periods of depression with stages of elation (manic period).

Types of mania: megalomania

With this mental disorder, a person not only ascribes to himself fame, wealth, power, but also demonstratively speaks of his uniqueness. At the same time, he categorically does not accept objections and does not agree that his behavior goes beyond the norm. Some patients believe that they are descendants of a noble family, others think that they own enormous wealth, and still others promise everyone that they will soon come up with an invention that will radically change this world. And there are those who call themselves messengers of God and foresee a catastrophe on a universal scale, some of them even manage to gather followers.

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A truly talented person may suffer from delusions of grandeur, and then he is attributed to star fever. However, most often the disorder is detected in people who do not have the abilities and virtues in which they believe. Interestingly, women are usually obsessed with the idea that they are simply better than everyone else and can achieve success in all aspects of life.

Symptoms

As for symptoms, a person never ceases to admire himself, he does everything to have his uniqueness recognized. The patient, deprived of attention, is gloomy and shows aggression. They do not perceive a critic (even a healthy one). Add to this periods of high spirits, alternating with periods of depression, insomnia, increased appetite, increased libido.

Causes of megalomania

The causes of mania have not been fully established. Factors contributing to the development of the disorder: high self-esteem, drugs, alcohol, trauma and infectious lesions of the brain, vascular pathologies, psychological trauma, hereditary predisposition and other mental illnesses.

Treatment

The mainstay of treatment for megalomania is the use of antipsychotics. Therefore, all people with this mental disorder are patients of a psychiatrist, since only he has the right to prescribe drugs that eliminate delirium and other manifestations of psychosis. Psychotherapy plays a supporting role.

What to do if mania develops

The first step is to organize an examination of the patient by a psychiatrist. This is often difficult, since in a state of mania, patients feel great and, as a rule, refuse to be examined by a doctor. If you are faced with the fact that your loved one has the symptoms of mania described above, you should contact a psychiatrist yourself, tell him about the patient’s condition and get advice on how to proceed further. Often, in order to provide assistance to such patients, it is necessary to resort to involuntary hospitalization.

For what reasons do manias occur?

This deviation, like many other protective mechanisms of the psyche, arises in the process of a habitual, stereotypical response, in which a person blocks external stimuli and negative factors and excludes unwanted moments from consciousness. He focuses actions only on what he likes or is interested in, and ignores all problematic, unsolved problems.

Most often, mania occurs with bipolar disorder (an affective state against the background of depression or a borderline situation). Then individual attacks of mania with specific symptoms or chronic manifestations of the disease are possible.

In addition, it develops due to psychosis of organic, infectious, toxic origin, in connection with neurological or somatic disorders (most often hormonal).

Mania is caused by the use of drugs, certain medications (antidepressants, corticosteroids, hallucinogens and opiates, psychostimulants). When diagnosing people who regularly take antidepressants or psychoactive substances, mania may be suspected if signs of agitation appeared long before the use of such drugs.

Why does the disease appear?

Today there is no exact list of reasons leading to the development of this psychiatric pathology. Factors believed to contribute to ill health include the following:

• genetic (hereditary) predisposition. The presence of psychiatric problems in close blood relatives;
• stress and emotional turmoil;
• nervous breakdowns with inappropriate behavior and loss of mental balance;
• paranoid schizophrenia, accompanied by hallucinations;
• paranoia;
• Alzheimer's disease;
• atherosclerotic changes;
• episodes of violence (such as fights or being the victim of muggers);
• head injuries with brain damage.

How does the disease manifest itself?

The main manifestation of the disease is anxiety, constant anticipation of trouble, fears for one’s life and health. Often a person hides fears from others, tries to suppress them, but at a certain stage in the development of the disease this turns out to be impossible. People around see the person’s suspicion and suspiciousness; his actions become increasingly strange (for example, he can walk backwards forward or constantly wear the same clothes, which he considers his amulet). The person becomes aggressive, expresses fears for his life to his loved ones, often accusing them of criminal thoughts against him. A person develops insomnia, may develop a tendency toward litigiousness (filing lawsuits against different people and organizations), isolation, depression, and even suicide attempts.

There are three main stages that the disease goes through.

• First stage. It is characterized by a person’s anxiety and isolation, his attempts to isolate himself from others. Socialization is generally preserved.
• The stage of active development of the disease. A person lives in constant fear and sees “conspiracies” everywhere. He cannot work normally, communicate with family and friends, and is gradually becoming unsocialized.
• The stage of an advanced disease. The person’s condition worsens, delusional ideas are constantly present in his speech, he falls into depression, which can be replaced by an aggressive state. At this stage, the patient can be dangerous both for himself (suicide or refusal to eat due to fears that it is poisoned) and for others (in an attempt to protect himself from an imaginary threat, a person can cripple those nearby or living with him in the same apartment ).

Is there a clear line between normal mood, hypomania, and mania?

No, there is no such clear boundary. To distinguish hypomania from a normal good mood or irritability, the most important signs are the absence of a reason (nothing particularly good or bad happened), and the fact that such a mood or behavior is usually not characteristic of this person. Mania is distinguished from hypomania by the presence of serious consequences, which is also a relative criterion. For example, large spending, absenteeism or a fleeting sexual adventure can be a trifle for one person, but have serious consequences for another.

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