In It Together: The experiences of partners/spouses living with a loved one with bipolar disorder

This portfolio contains a selection of work completed for the Practitioner Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Wolverhampton. It contains three dossiers: Academic, Therapeutic Development and Research.ABSTRACT The aims of this study were to explore partners��� experiences of living with a loved one with bipolar disorder and how they coped with these experiences. Another aim was to explore whether these individuals felt that Counselling Psychologists could play a role with care-giving tasks and their own psychological needs. Five individuals, who were currently living with, or had been living with, a partner with bipolar disorder, volunteered and participated in a semi-structured interview. These interviews were transcribed and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as described by Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009). A table of super-ordinate and sub-ordinate themes was created as a result of this analysis. Partners��� experiences are characterised by various phases which partners could move around and between. This was referred to as the ���cycle of changing illness awareness���. This theme adds to the existing literature. As partners moved around and between these phases they experienced different emotions, employed different coping strategies and had experiences of being ���in it together��� interchangeably with being ���isolated and alone���. This research concludes that partners��� experiences of caring for a loved one with bipolar disorder do not follow a linear, predictable path and as a result, professionals working with caregivers need to be aware of which phases of the ���cycle of changing illness awareness��� partners are in when offering interventions. The analysis also suggests that partners cope differently when their loved one is manic and depressed. However, further exploration is still needed