Was the Prophet Joseph Smith bi-polar?

[_Jersey Girl]

beastie,

I'm going to print out your lengthy post of evidences and take a look later today when I have more time. I think it would be good to note what the circumstances where (regarding his personal life as well as the development of the church) when he made the statements you supplied.

One small example. The lawyer statement sounds fully serious and not a little delusional. However, there is another statement in one book I have that shows Joseph Smith mocking himself and his dedication to study law.

I'll look at this later but just as an aside (throwing a wrench into the works), in my view, Joseph Smith wasn't the only mentally ill person closely involved in the development of the church.

[_beastie]

There is no doubt that Sidney Rigdon had bipolar, even with the already noted difficulties of diagnosing dead people. His symptoms, and the record of it, are just too clear for doubt in that case, in my opinion.

[_DonBradley]

I'm unconvinced.

While we can document that Joseph Smith had moods, perhaps sometimes without obvious external triggers, this is simply human, not bipolar.

Smith appears to have had remarkable levels of energy--consistent with mania or hypomania, but a cyclical pattern of endogenous depression alternating with mania just isn't there.

for what it's worth, it's been noted that prophet figures often appear to be manic, though without the other "pole" that would make their pattern bipolar. (On the manic energy levels of prophet figures and gurus, see Len Oakes, Prophetic Charisma.)

Don

[_beastie]

Don,

I believe we've had this conversation before, unless I'm mixing you up with someone else.

You have to remember that the illness called bipolar actually has different manifestations. The classical form of bipolar I is what we normally associate with bipolar - that is a person who, usually a couple of times a year, has a severe mood swing that descends into psychosis, depressive or manic. In between those episodes the person appears normal, more or less (although usually with a lot of emotional baggage due to trying to deal with a life disrupted by bipolar.)

But this is just one manifestation of the disease. Some people cycle much more rapidly than a couple of times a year. Some people cycle almost daily. Some people experience much more of one phase of the disease than the other, either the depressive or manic phase. In some people one of the phases is severe while the other is much more muted. All these variabilities are part of the reason bipolar can be difficult to diagnose, and is often misdiagnosed except in the most clear cut cases of classic bipolar I.

Personally, one of the most persuasive pieces of evidence for me is that his son clearly had severe bipolar that required institutionalization. Without this piece of evidence, I probably would not be personally convinced (and this is an opinion, not something I can "prove", of course). The other pieces of evidence that I find persuasive (with the first element of his son) is his grandiosity and periods of excessive sexuality (ie, marrying a bunch of women in a short amount of time).

[_DonBradley]

Hi Beastie,

Yes, we have discussed this before. Round Two! ;-)

The issue for me isn't whether he exhibits manic levels of energy, confidence, and sexuality--he does. The issue is the presence of a natural "cycling" to the other "pole." I see absolutely nothing in Joseph Smith's life that looks like more than ordinary mood swings--no automatic "depressive" downturns of any degree or frequency that seems more than normal. Mania alone is, by definition, merely unipolar; so the diagnosis of "bipolar disorder" is simply unwarranted.

Note also, again, that hypomania and mania--though not necessarily bipolar disorder--appear to be characteristic of prophet figures. This pattern would again tend to support unipolar mania or hypomania in Joseph Smith, without the depressive pole.

That David Hyrum Smith was bipolar--if, indeed, this is the correct diagnosis--is quite relevant to assessing his father's personality, but, with the following qualifications:

1) While having a first-degree relative with bipolar disorder greatly increases one's chances of being bipolar, it can't substitute, diagnostically, for evidence of a unusually strong or frequent depression.

2) Unipolar mania or hypomania in a first-degree relative might also be strongly associated with bipolar disorder. Unless or until we know the degree of that relationship, we can't assume that apparent bipolar disorder in David Hyrum is more consistent with his father having bipolar disorder than with his father having unipolar mania or hypomania.

My basic problem with Joseph Smith as "bipolar" is that I have never seen any pattern of endogenous depression in him, or seen a good case made for one. That he on very rare occasions reported in his diary that he felt gloomy, without also reporting why, is just as consistent with absolute normalcy as with bipolar disorder. And the times when he appears to have been seriously or lastingly depressed (e.g., Liberty Jail), he had excellent reason for being so. A depressive reaction to a depressing situation isn't pathological; it's normal.

In short, I don't disagree that Joseph Smith appears to have been manic. I disagree that we have evidence for a more-than-normal level of depression in him, at any speed of cycling.

Don

[_beastie]

Again, I want to emphasize the speculative nature of this discussion. Diagnosing bipolar, for the reasons that are becoming apparent on this thread, can be difficult in a living subject, much less a dead one. So this is not an opinion I'm particularly invested in, although I am fairly convinced of it.

Bipolar has many different manifestations, and some victims display almost all of one pole and hardly ever the opposing pole, or may express the opposing pole in an extremely muted fashion, sometimes leading to years of mis-diagnosis. Usually the mis-diagnosis occurs in conjunction with depression manifested without obvious mania, or very muted hypo-mania, but it can occur with obvious mania with muted or sporadic depression. And there are some researchers who now speculate that some people with unipolar depression who are unresponsive to anti-depressants alone may actually be mis-diagnosed bipolar, and it's worth trying a mood stabilizer.

But I am positive, based on my own experiences with the disease in family members and diagnosing psychiatrists, that if an individual manifested extreme mania, like Joseph Smith did, and had a first degree relative with bipolar, that the psychiatrists would strongly consider a bipolar diagnosis and likely a trial medicine with a mood stabilizer. In fact, that is one of the first questions diagnosing physicians ask. That is why, to me, his son's very clear bipolar condition is the most important clue. Without that element, I would be much less convinced that bipolar ought to be considered.

I do believe there is enough evidence in his journals for possible depressive episodes without any clear cause to justify this as a possibility. There was nothing to justify a depressive state in the time frame of the journal entries I noted above. When you take into consideration that when people are depressed, they are far less inclined to do something like make a journal entry, the fact that he did record periods of mental unease is even more important. It also must be considered that, particularly in males, depression is often manifested as irritation and anger, rather than sadness. He certainly had an explosive temper at times. That is definitely part of the bipolar condition.

Untreated bipolar also tends to worsen over time. I think Joseph Smith was losing his mind by the end of his life, frankly, and that would also be consistent with the progressive nature of untreated bipolar.

Anyway, as I said, this is speculative, and I'm not trying to persuade people. I only explained this much due to Jersey Girl's questions.