What is the difference between bipolar disorder and schizoid affective disorder?!
Question:
What is the difference between bipolar disorder and schizoid affective disorder?
Obviously, I can read the DSM … what I am looking for, in a nutshell, is what separates the two disorders, or even personal anecdotes.
Thanks.
Answers:
The essential difference between Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder is the timing and context of the symptoms. Both include mood symptoms and Bipolar Disorder may evidence psychotic symptoms during a manic or a depressed episode, however with Schizoaffective Disorder the psychotic symptoms continue in the ABSENCE of prominent mood symptoms. In other words, mood symptoms are secondary to psychotic symptoms (perceptual abnormalities and thought disorders) in Schizoaffective Disorder and the reverse is true with Bipolar Disorder-psychotic symptoms (if present at all) are secondary to mood symptoms. Schizoaffective Disorder has a poorer prognosis than does Bipolar Disorder as well. That's it in a nutshell.