WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MANIA AND HYPOMANIA?
The difference is basically one of degree. The DSM-IV defines hypomania as “a distinct period of
sustained elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting throughout four days.” Mania is a longer, more intense version of the same thing. The manic mood is not just elevated but “abnormally and persistently elevated,” and it lasts at least one week—twice as long as a hypomanic episode.
In addition, a person in a manic or hypomanic state would be expected to have at least three of the following symptoms:
o excessive self-esteem or grandiosity
o reduced need for sleep
o excessive talkativeness, telephoning, spending
o extremely rapid flight of thoughts along with the feeling that the mind is racing
o inability to concentrate, easily distracted
o increase in social or work-oriented activities, often with a sixty- to eighty-hour work week
o poor judgment, as indicated by misguided business decisions, sprees of uncontrolled spending, or an increase in sexual indiscretions.
Again, the difference between mania and hypomania is one of degree. While both states might be described using terms such as those listed, hypomania can simply seem like a more productive, active period, whereas a full-blown manic attack seriously impairs functioning and often requires hospitalization. Manic people are out of control: they can hurt themselves and others. But those who are hypomanic can also exercise poor judgment. Some patients make excursions from a pleasurable (or sometimes irritable) hypomania to a shockingly destructive mania, affecting everyone and everything around them.
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