5.+Scientific+Perspectives

Two perspectives that attempt to explain the disorder are the biological perspective, which discusses factors such as genetics and brain chemistry, and the cognitive perspective, which discusses the disorder from the thinking standpoint. Many questions have been answered about bipolar disorder by the biological perspective. It has shown that genetics do play a role in developing a disorder seeing as, “people who have relatives with a mood disorder are at higher risk of developing mood disturbances…” (Kendler et al., 1992) (p.426, The World of Psychology), and it has shown that there is a possible link between abnormal levels of serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain that can cause mood disorders. The only problem with going on information from the biological standpoint is that there really isn’t very much information available. Many studies have been done but they don’t always show enough results to finally be able to explain what happens to cause this disorder. The cognitive perspective explains the disorder as being caused by negative outlooks on life. When people view life as constantly defeating and see themselves as inferior to everything, that can attribute to making somebody depressed all the time.
 * __Scientific Perspectives on Bipolar Disorder:__ [[image:http://images.agoramedia.com/everydayhealth/gcms/photogallery_famous_people_with_bipolar_disorder_06_full.jpg width="180" height="240" align="textTop" caption="Vincent van Gogh"]] **