User:Mcman

My name is John McManamy. I am a former financial journalist with a law degree. I have 25 years experience as an editor/publisher/journalist/writer. In January 1999, following a severe series of depressions and a lifetime of denial I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Soon after, I began researching and writing about my illness.

I am the editor and publisher of the award-winning McMan's Depression and Bipolar Weekly and McMan's Depression and Bipolar Web (www.mcmanweb.com). This award was conferred on me by the Connecticut Psychatric Society, NAMI CT, and the CT Dept of Mental Health. In Nov 2006, Harper Collins will publish my book, "Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You That You Need to Know." This will be the first comprehensive book for depression and bipolar patients written by a patient.

Writing on depression and bipolar disorder is a full-time undertaking. Each week, I research the latest medical and scientific articles from the PubMed database and other sources. I also interview experts, talk to patients, and attend conferences. I also facilitate a local support group.

Thanks to the internet, "expert patients" are coming into their own. I am highly respectful of psychiatry and psychology, and am very grateful to the people who have dedicated their lives to improving my own. The researchers and clinicians I have talked to have not only been gracious in explaining to me the fundamentals of my illness; they have spent a good deal of time with me explaining where they see psychiatry headed.

There are obviously issues of fierce scientific and academic debate in psychiatry, but I have observed a strong consensus on broad principles.

In my seven years of writing on depression and bipolar disorder, I have witnessed many sweeping changes that strongly affect the way we think about both illnesses. Virtually all of these developments began many years earlier in the context of quiet academic debate.

These changes include:

1) Quantum leaps in scientific tools, including the genome map, gene scans, brain scans, animal models, tissue samples, etc that allow researchers from across several disciplines to actually begin to link particular genes and/or brain systems to emotion (see eg Hariri et al).

2) Incorporation of the monoamine hypothesis into a far more sophisticated view of neuronal connectivity and intraneuronal signaling (see eg Manji and Duman).

3) The mainstreaming of the "mood spectrum," which involves far subtler diagnostics than suggested by the DSM (see eg Akiskal and Cassano).

4) Recognition of depression as accounting for far more days unwell in bipolar patients than mania (see eg Post and Akiskal).

5) New treatment guidelines that acknowledge the patient's right to full recovery and restored functioning (see eg the APA Bipolar Treatment Guideline).

My minor contributions on Wikipedia focus on mood spectrum issues, such as mania in depression. These issues have been widely discussed among experts for decades, but are not in widespread circulation in literature for patients. Two books this year will address this concern, my own and a book on the soft edge of bipolar disorder, "Still Depressed," by Jim Phelps MD.

(The next edition of "Manic Depressive Illness" by Goodwin and Jamison, the definitive book for psychiatrists, should make very interesting reding.)

I hasten to add that I am not a mental health professional and I do not dispense medical or any other type of advice. My mission is to simply inform patients and their loved ones, based on the best expert insights, amplified by patient experiences. Informed patients, I believe, then forge better relationships with their treating professionals, which is essential to getting well and staying well.

Since I am a patient, I take my job very seriously. I have experienced first hand the horrors of this illness, in myself, my friends, and my family. Accordingly, I consider myself the bacon in the breakfast rather than the egg.

I live outside Princeton with my wife Susan and our cat Holly, affectionally known as Monkey Pants. I have a grown daughter, Emily, from my first marriage. My interests include cooking, music (classical, jazz, opera), writing fiction, and books. I once took tap dancing lessons, and have been known to threaten anyone who gets on my wrong side with a performance.

Feel free to contact me at mcman@mcmanweb.com