bipolar affective disorder dsm
What is the difference between bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder?
Obviously, I read the DSM … what I'm looking for, in short, is what separates the two disorders, or even personal anecdotes. Thank you.
The essential difference between bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder is the time and the context of symptoms. Both include mood symptoms and bipolar disorder may evidence psychotic symptoms during a manic or depressive episode, however, with schizoaffective disorder psychotic symptoms continue in the absence of prominent mood symptoms. In other words, mood symptoms are secondary to psychotic symptoms (perceptual disturbances and thought disorder) in schizoaffective disorder and the opposite occurs with bipolar disorder, psychotic symptoms (if present at all) are secondary to mood symptoms. Schizoaffective disorder have a poorer prognosis than bipolar disorder as well. That is in a nutshell.
