Robin Williams Research Paper

Robin Williams I believe is one of the greatest all time actors for all of my childhood. Robin Williams had such an amazing impact on the acting industry and i’m very sure brought along many laughs with him in his acting career. He had so much passion in every disney movie he starred in Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Night at the Museum, and Flubber. All of those movies are some of the greatest childhood Disney movies made. Robin Williams bought acting to life and really brought of the stars in small childrens eyes. He was my favorite actor as a child and will always be the most rememberable actor to me.

There are many concerns when it comes to the mental health of individuals throughout the world. Mental health problems can manifest in a variety of different ways and range in severity from attention deficits to hallucinations. One of the most severe forms of disorders that can affect an individual is bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a brain disorder that presents a wide variety of different symptoms that affect the ability of an individual to live a complete and satisfied life. By examining the overall prevalence of the ailment, its symptoms, and the forms of treatments available, a more complete understanding of bipolar disease can emerge.

The burden of bipolar disorder, which has an estimated prevalence of 4% worldwide, permeates throughout all aspects of society from the

In fact, it is described as “one of the most heritable of common, complex, medical conditions” by John I. Nurnberger Jr., M.D., Ph.D., and Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Institute of Psychiatric Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis (4). Recent research has found the heritability of bipolar disorder to be approximately 85% (5). This means that 85% of the variation of this disorder is due to genetic factors. Due to its strong heritability, there has been extensive research on the genetic influences behind bipolar disorder. Consequently, the environmental factors that also may contribute to the development of bipolar disorder have far less been a topic of investigation.

The World Health Organization states that over 60 million people worldwide have bipolar disorder. According to several studies, a significant proportion of the children and adolescents with depression may actually be experiencing the early onset of adolescent bipolar disorder, but have not yet experienced the manic phase of the illness. It is also suspected that a significant number of children diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADHD) actually have early-onset bipolar disorder instead of or alongside of ADHD. For example, an elementary school age child who seems difficult to settle in a classroom and cannot concentrate or refuses to do so might actually be showing the first adolescent bipolar disorder signs.”

Each year in the United States approximately 30,000 or 12.93 per 100,00 (prevalence) persons die each year as a result of suicide with an additional 500,000 making a failed attempt. However, in 2013 the official number of reported deaths by suicide totaled 41,149 or 1.6 percent of all reported deaths in the U.S, thereby making suicide the 10th leading cause of death (American Association of Suicidology, 2015). When comparing global suicide statistics, the U.S. ranks 47th amongst the 116 countries included in the study, and although other countries fair far worse, it is important to note, suicide is preventable (World Health Rankings, 2014). These startling statistics are reversible if, we as a society act to dismantle the stigma associated with both emotional and mental disorders given they are often the precursor of suicidal ideation.

Bipolar disorder represents a group of diseases that affect the brain and cause dramatic mood swings from one extreme to the other. Feelings can move from depression to mania, from the lowest of lows, to the highest of highs. This disorder is not curable, but through a comprehensive treatment plan it can be controlled. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 5.7 million adults in America are impacted by this disorder. That equates to 2.6% of the population over the age of 18 every year. 250 million people worldwide are estimated to have bipolar disorder and more than two-thirds have one or more family members that have a mental illness. That is why the National Institute of Mental Health has indicated that bipolar disorder may have an inheritable component to the disease. The risk is low only between 0.5 and 1.6%, but the disorder is one of the most devastating, with a suicide rate of 10 to 20% among patients (Huffman/Dowdell).

“The evidence is so strongly compelling that bipolar [disorder] is a largely biologic-based disorder that pharmacologic intervention is the mainstay of treatment,” (p.111) It is crucial to find a wide assortment of ways in order to treat this disorder because every case of the illness varies from patient to patient. In some cases, a medication that works efficiently for a group of patients may have little to no effect or adverse effects to another group of patients. It is important to utilize psychotherapies such as cognitive, behavioral, and psychoeducational approaches in order to supplement the prescribed medications, as medications cannot “teach” the patient different coping skills like therapy can. Even though medication alone is not always the most effective way of treating patients, “some of the most convincing evidence in favor of a biological etiology remains the relatively good response to pharmacotherapy and the extremely poor response to purely psychological interventions,” (p. 110). In turn, those patients have a better probability to enter into remission and transition into more productive and higher quality

Markus Nothen, who is a professor at the University of Bonn, Germany, has said that there are many different genes that interact with environmental factors (Muhleisen et al., 2014). Some environmental factors would include stress and drug or alcohol dependency. Families need to be educated about this disorder so they can be aware of the symptoms. Treatment can be administered for this illness especially if there is a family history. Many people are diagnosed with depression and given medication that does not help with their bipolar symptoms (Llewellyn, Stowe & Strader, 2014). Antidepressants are prescribed for major depression and a bipolar patient needs more medication for their disorder. The medications that are taken for depression could cause more harm to the person’s psychological behavior. When it takes longer to diagnose bipolar disorder a person’s depression may get worse and cause harmful effects in their everyday life. Bipolar disorder is often overlooked or misdiagnosed when a person’s aggression and anger happen frequently. People in a manic episode tend to show poor judgment by being argumentative and may destroy property while having an episode of anger (Nevid, 2014, p 257). Men are more likely to experience these manic episodes and go overboard on drinking and have destructive behavior and women have more depressive episodes that include weight gain and insomnia ( Duerr, 2014). Stressful life events increase a

Although Robin Williams was never officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder or depression, I believe that he was suffering from both when he chose suicide. It is not ironic that both of these mental illnesses are

Bipolar Disorder is a common psychiatric mood disorder that is defined by recurrent episodes of abnormally elevated mood and depression, changes in energy and, the ability to carry out day to day tasks. (Joel, Jakosson and colleges) “Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a chronic disease with high risk of relapse. This disease also results in a high rate of suicidal mortality.” (Sabrina, Paterniti and Jean-Claude Bisserbe) Many studies show that this disorder is genetic therefore it runs in families, passing down

The award winning actor Robin Williams suicided at the age of 63. He had suffered from severe depression, addiction, and bipolar disorder for most of his adult life as a comedian. The media may portray these diagnoses to be depraved and caused by a lack of one taking care of themselves in the western culture. Mental health awareness has grown significantly in the publics eyes in the past few decades but there is still many things to learn and teach about mental health.

"In the time it takes you to read this article, six Americans will try to kill themselves; in another ten minutes one will succeed. Over 40,000 Americans took their own lives in 2012—more than died in car crashes—says the American Association of Suicidology.” ("An Awful Hole." Economist. 31 Jan. 2015: 21. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Jun. 2016.) In the media this sentence is just normal and good information to give out to others because the purposes of the news they’re going after is negativity, inform, and impact. The media tries to sell us examples of mental health through magazines with celebrities; showing even the idols can have mental health issues.

Mental health and substance abuse problems are not uncommon for comedians. Instead, comedians have an easier time hiding their problems behind the façade of their profession (Blackwell, 2014). A light has been focused on this situation with the recent suicide of Robin Williams. Robin Williams has openly talked about his substance abuse problems and suffering from bipolar and major depression. However, Blackwell (2014) states that this can be hard to acknowledge when these mental health problems are happening behind the façade of comedy and a comedian.