[Urban Cragou]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

I envy your clarity of view and respect your reference to the old greats like Kraepelin and Leonard.
I'm not saying the connections between symptoms that constitute recognized syndromes are incorrect. But I can't help thinking we are still far from certain. It is as if we have a vast tapestry in front of us and are able to see only certain spots on it (syndromes), with some fragments of patterns weaved from different palettes of colours from the spectrums of mood, cognition and behaviour. And we keep on trying to divine the whole tapestry by connecting and reconnecting those spots in different ways. Something which used to be thought of as unipolar depression with brief hypomanic episodes could now be bipolar 2, some ADHD cases may also be reclassified as bipolar 2, schizophrenia could be bipolar 1 with psychotic features, BPD+dysthymia could be bipolar 2.
I know it's not practical or accepted, bofore or now, but I still prefer to separate the visible threads of the pattern if that makes sense.
edit: having said all that, I love when you mention schizophrenia as premature dementia.

Mhm. I get what you're saying but borderline's borderline. Nothing like bipolar manic depression in spite of all the stereotypes.

Depression with even the slightest manic touch is on the manic-depressive spectrum. Some psychotic depressions are closed off by sharp boundaries but there's never any such thing as unipolar depression with "brief" hypomania. That's something that always points at bipolar no matter how brief the abnormal highs are. So long as there's potential for swinging to the other pole it's always bipolar. No matter how mild or brief the reversals are.