Is bipolar disorder related to schizophrenia and autism?

Question

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/09/older-dads-link.html

Answer 1

Freud believed autism is entirely different from schizophrenia.  Bleuler thought autism was a symptom of schizophrenia.  Take your pick:

http://www.answers.com/topic/autism?cat=...

"The word was introduced into the psychiatric vocabulary by Eugen Bleuler in 1911 in his description of schizophrenia. However, a hint of it could be detected as early as 1907 in the correspondence between Freud and Jung: "Bleuler still misses a clear definition of autoerotism and its specifically psychological effects. He has, however, accepted the concept for his Dem[entia] pr[aecox] contribution to Aschaffenburg's Handbook. He doesn't want to say autoerotism (for reasons we all know), but prefers 'autism' or 'ipsism"' (Freud and Jung, p. 44-45).

Bleuler, who very early on took an interest in Freud's work, did not accept his libido theory, and this was the reason for the amputation that produced the word autism from autoerotism: to distance it from the libidinal significations of the latter term, while keeping the former's Greek root, auto, meaning "self." For Bleuler, the autism of schizophrenia is a shutting-in of the subject in an impenetrable, incommunicable world, closed in on itself, made up of unorganized delusional elements to which all the subject's disposable mental energy is attached."

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Anyway, it is known that any constitutional weakness can result in bi-polar or schizophrenia or autism.  The *choice* of mental illness, though, is based on infantile experience, and the age at which the experience occurred.  For instance; if a trauma happened at birth or shortly before, that makes a person predisposed to autism in particular.  If a frail child makes it through early childhood, though, schizophrenia or bi-polar will usually not appear until sometime after puberty.  

I haven't read Bruno Bettelheim's book on infantile psychosis, but it gives some case histories.  

http://product.half.ebay.com/_W0QQtgZinf...

Anyway, there can be no doubt that all three are linked; albeit in a roundabout way.  And I can suppose that older fathers might contribute damaged genes leading to frailty in their children, and that could end up either as autism, bi-polar or schizophrenia.

Answer 2

As a Pediatrician who have treated children with all three types of disease, I believe that they are interconnected. The reason I say that is because many of the same types of drugs work in all the diseases, namely the atypical anti psychotic drugs. An explanation is that it is possible that similar neurotransmitters are affected in the all of the diseases but they each present with different mental symptoms and at different ages of life.

With Bipolar, a person has severe mood swings including, anger ,depression, elation manic behavior and excessive thoughts. They may also have some delusions which are present in Schizophrenia (literally two brains")

With Autism, the child is unable to make social connections and have difficulty communication with other people. As Autistic children grow up, some of them do develop Bipolar disorder.

They are also all genetically inherited.

Hope this answers your question

Answer 3

Good question.  I learned this answer a long time ago.  What the doc says from her observations is exactly what I saw, the same meds for different diagnoses or different meds for the same diagnoses.  It didn't make sense to me then, but it does now.  I knew then that they were all related, but I didn't know how.  Now I do.  

When I set out to reverse my children's autism, Bipolar, ADHD, etc., which I did, I learned phenomenal knowledge.  What the doctors said was that when they rid these children of autism, they found that all kinds of other diseases went away as well (diabetes, epilepsy, asthma, allergies, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD, etc.)  Basically, they are all from pathogens and toxins and for various reasons (won't go into that here), the medical profession stopped looking for causes of such and just blindly put people on psych meds or told them to get counseling or told them no one can help them.  This unfortunately is still the norm.  But some doctors decided to explore the medical causes, which is what they are suppose to do anyhow, and found them.

Apparently the number one cause of all autoimmune and mental illnesses is spirochete bacteria wearing down the immune system, allowing other pathogens to grow unchecked and rendering the person unable to detox as fast as the toxins were stockpiling.  Thus, its all pathogens and toxins.  I tell people its this easy.  They don't believe me, but some do.  Anyhow, I must share since people shared with me and I believed them and now my children no longer have such diagnoses.  

Answer 4

No not at all. All 3 are completely different in terms of symptoms, prognosis and treatment. They are all mental disorders although that' about all they have in common.  

Answer 5

Only in the fact they occur in the brain.

Answer 6

I’d say it can be a related. It’s not a symptom. If you have schizophrenia it’s not uncommon to have other mental disorders like being bipolar. Some disorders are more prone to spring other disorders like bipolar. For example for someone who is bipolar, you can get postpartum psychosis after a birth (if your a female) that can turn into postpartum depression.