Description

A Blueprint Of Bipolar Recovery
By Mark Harnden

ISBN: 978-1-84991-935-7
Published: 2012
Pages: 144
Key Themes: Mental Health, Bipolar, Recovery, Manic Depression

Description

The User Perspective, a Blueprint of Bipolar Recovery is the follow up to In The Dark Backyard, published by Chipmunka in 2010. It is the continuing first person account of a man successfully coming to terms with living with manic depression or bipolar disorder, after many chaotic years.

In The User Perspective the author charts the progress he has made since the initial onset of his extreme bipolar condition and shares the lessons he has learned on the way to achieving genuine stability. The book is packed with original insight, warmth and humour and is well worth a read.

About the Author

Mark was born in Aldershot in 1973. For six years, he boarded at Homefield School near Bournemouth before winning a sixth form leadership scholarship to Malvern College, in Worcestershire. He went up to the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne to read politics and history but three years later, when Mark should have been sitting the final exams of his degree, he found himself admitted into psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with manic depressive psychosis. Learning to cope with manic depression has proven achievable but remains, nonetheless, an endeavour fraught with difficulties and seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Mark is proud to have graduated from the Open University with BA Hons in politics and philosophy and MA in philosophy. From 2004 to 2006 Mark was employed as Public Relations Officer for MDF the Bipolar Organisation Wales. Since 2006, Mark has worked free lance in mental health education. His clients have included the United Kingdom Psychiatric Pharmacy Group, AstraZeneca Neuroscience, Bath University and Manchester Mental Health Service Trust. Mark has published his Masters dissertation with Chipmunka, a political philosophy of mental illness, along with In The Dark Backyard, a quirky and entertaining look back at some acutely chaotic times. The User Perspective is the third work Mark has published with Chipmunka. It is the sequel to In The Dark Backyard, an insightful first hand account of the journey from ward to wellness. In his spare time, Mark plays and coaches cricket.