title: [Differences in Subjective Experience Between Unipolar and Bipolar Depression].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It is important to make distinction between bipolar and unipolar depression because treatment and prognosis are different. Since the diagnosis of the two conditions is purely clinical, find symptomatic differences is useful.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Find differences in subjective experience (first person) between unipolar and bipolar depression.
  
  
  METHODS
  Phenomenological-oriented qualitative exploratory study of 12 patients (7 with bipolar depression and 5 with unipolar depression, 3 men and 9 women). We used a semi-structured interview based on Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The predominant mood in bipolar depression is emotional dampening, in unipolar is sadness. The bodily experience in bipolar is of a heavy, tired body; an element that inserts between the desires of acting and performing actions and becomes an obstacle to the movement. In unipolar is of a body that feels more comfortable with the stillness than activity, like laziness of everyday life. Cognition and the stream of consciousness: in bipolar depression, compared with unipolar, thinking is slower, as if to overcome obstacles in their course. There are more difficult to understand what is heard or read. Future perspective: in bipolar depression, hopelessness is stronger and broader than in unipolar, as if the very possibility of hope was lost.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Qualitative differences in predominant mood, bodily experience, cognition and future perspective were found between bipolar and unipolar depression.
authors: Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia. Electronic address: Marcofierro2222@yahoo.com.
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Fierro
authors: Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.
authors: Andrés
authors: A
authors: Bustos
authors: Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia; Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
authors: Carlos
authors: C
authors: Molina
mesh_terms: D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D036301:Qualitative Research
keywords: Bipolar depression; Bipolar disorder; Depresión bipolar; Depresión unipolar; EASE; Fenomenología; Phenomenology; Symptoms; Síntomas; Trastorno bipolar; Unipolar depression