Clinical differentiation of bipolar II disorder from personality-based “emotional dysregulation” conditions

Background n-psychotic mood swings experienced by those with a bipolar II disorder can lead to diagnostic dilemmas, especially in differentiating this condition from personality styles marked by emotional dysregulation. This paper provides a clinical vignette and then offers some indicative parameters that might assist differentiation. s ical vignette is provided of a patient who had longitudinal features consistent with either a bipolar II disorder or of distinct personality-based dysregulation and the reader is invited to consider the likely diagnosis. A relevant literature is overviewed and, in conjunction with clinical observations, diagnostic parameters for differentiating the two diagnostic groupings are derived. s suggested that the derived parameters assist diagnostic clarification in most instances but reference back to the clinical vignette tempers that level of confidence. tions f the indentified differentiating features are clinically derived and are subject to limitations of clinical observation and biases. sions portance of differentiating a primary bipolar II disorder from a personality-based condition is of high clinical importance. This overview seeks to advance the objective.