Mania
From Wikinfo
See also Social mania
Mania, considered as it applies to an individual is a psychiatric condition characterised by severely elevated mood. Associated with bipolar disorder, where episodes of mania alternate with episodes of depression. (Note: not all mania is bipolar disorder, other diseases can cause mania - however bipolar disorder is the 'classic' manic disease).
(Hypomania refers to a less severe variant of mania, where there is less loss of control.)
Although 'severely elevated mood' sounds pleasant, the actual experience of mania is usually unpleasant and frightening for the person involved. A person in the grip of mania will display multiple enthusiasms and undertake many inititives, frequently incurring many obligations, social and financial not all of which can be fulfilled.
Other manic symptoms include hypersexuality, religiosity, and hyperactivity.
Mania can also be experienced at the same time as depression, in so-called dysphoric mania.
This has caused speculation amongst doctors that mania and depression are two independent axes in a bipolar spectrum, rather than opposites.
In Greek mythology, Mania ("insanity") was the personification of insanity.
By definition mania considered as a psychiatric disease excludes persons such as Hitler and many other less notorious individuals who display hyperactivity, but whose projects have a social component. Such individuals may be at the core of social manias such as Nazism, the Cultural Revolution, or Islamism or merely be caught up in them.
In Roman mythology, originally borrowed from Etruscan mythology after the assimilation of their people, Mania was the goddess of the dead. She, along with Mantus, ruled the underworld. She was said to be the mother of ghosts and the undead, as well as the Lares and the Nanes.
In Greek mythology, Mania ("insanity") was the personification of insanity.
In Roman mythology, originally borrowed from Etruscan mythology after the assimilation of their people, Mania was the goddess of the dead. She, along with Mantus, ruled the underworld. She was said to be the mother of ghosts and the undead, as well as the Lares and the Nanes.
References
- Some material incorporated from the Wikipedia article, "Mania" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania November 26, 2003
