SUBJECTIVE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PEAK EXPERIENCES AND HYPOMANIA: PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY USING PEAK EXPERIENCES INTERVIEW

Abstract

The borderline nature of hypomania may be a cause of widely reported issues with accurate bipolar disorder or recurrent depression differential diagnosis. It is understandable as long as there is a subtle difference between criteria for hypomania and normal (more or less extreme) elevated mood conditions, such as peak experiences of a self-actualizing person. In such cases, there are possibilities for taking one for another that leads both to a false-positive hypomania diagnosis for healthy subjects and subjects suffering from recurrent depression rather than from bipolar disorder, and to a false-negative perception of actual hypomania as just a highly good mood, brilliant efficiency and holistic existential feelings. This paper focuses on the phenomenological study of subjective experiences of such states in groups of healthy individuals with high or moderate self-actualization levels and individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder without comorbidity. A Peak Experiences Interview has been developed to collect phenomenological data for further extraction of substantial features of subjective experiences for both groups. The study shows that the differences in phenomenology of peak experiences and hypomania state encompass various components, such as cognitive, emotional, somatic, behavioural, imaginative, existential. These findings may be used for developing diagnostic manuals and inventories as well as self-monitoring tools for patients and psychoeducational materials. The PEXI itself has shown its capacity for collecting phenomenological data and detecting relatively subtle differences in experiences of various modalities. Nevertheless, it shall undergo more trials with larger samples and cross-validation. Theoretical and practical insights from using such an approach may contribute greatly both in clinical psychology and personality studies.