St. John's News

Elizabeth Brondolo’s, Ph.D., first book, Break the Bipolar Cycle: A Day-to-Day Guide to Living with Bipolar Disorder, co-written with Xavier Amador, Ph.D., and published by McGraw Hill, is a friendly, considerate, practical, sometimes intimate guide for people suffering from Bipolar Spectrum Disorder (BPS).  It provides an accessible scientific foundation for BPS, steps to identify and understand their condition, and offers systematic, proactive methods for taking the first steps towards healing.

A person with BPS, once known as manic depression, oscillates between mania—consisting of high creativity, racing thoughts, and euphoria—and depression. The writer Virginia Woolf once wrote about her own experiences with mental illness, “[manic depression] has its fascinations as well as its terrors.”

Symptoms of BPS are subtle and are often overlooked as unipolar depression, or major depression, meaning the person has no signs of mania. Dr. Brondolo, Professor of Psychology at St. John’s University, points out that even if a patient appears to have major depression, a clinician should never rule out BPS. Even people with BPS 1, or classic manic depression, spend 80 percent of their episodes depressed. 

Her book couldn’t have come at a better time. Problems with diagnosing BPS contribute to patients’ confusion and difficulties when, after treatment, they do not feel they’re getting better.  The expert Hagop Akiskal estimated that 50 percent of people are misdiagnosed and that a correct diagnosis takes an average of 10 years because, as Brondolo says, “it is much easier to get this wrong, than to get this right.”

One of the most compelling aspects of Break the Bipolar Cycle are the personal narratives of Brondolo’s clients interspersed throughout the book. After 15 years of clinical work, Brondolo says that they were her motivation. “I wrote the book because my patients have told me so many stories and I have loved working with them.”

She realized people needed awareness and education after attending “Ask the Doctor” Sessions at the National Alliance for Mental Illness for several years. During these sessions, people from all over the country with BPS and/or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) told Brondolo their histories. She realized there were large numbers of people living in areas of the country with serious mental illnesses who have inadequate treatment due to very limited access to physicians and psychologists. “That,” she says, “was very compelling to me. I was very moved.”

Combining all she had learned from her New York City patients and from researchers’ studies, Brondolo set forth to create a book that would empower people, who couldn’t readily access mental health care, with knowledge of their own condition and the availability of resources. She says, “Through an accessible book, we could give them the tools for self-management, so they could talk more effectively with their doctors.”

At the Forefront
At St. John’s University, Brondolo continues to conduct innovative research into the physical effects of stress with St. John’s graduate and undergraduate students.  With funding from American Heart Association and NIH, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and St. John’s University, the last seven years have been marked by milestone work done by Brondolo studying workplace conflict and the influence of racism on cardiovascular risk factors. St. John’s students have spearheaded their own academic research and careers while studying under Brondolo. Jahanara Ullah, Jasmin Kwok, Juhee Jhalani, and Asha Kumar, to name a few, have all participated in data collection while Jennifer Atencio also traveled to Thailand to present findings at the International Society of Behavioral Medicine Meetings

In one of her current projects, Brondolo and her graduate students are trying to measure perceived racism and how racial discrimination is experienced across African-American, Latino, and different Asian communities. 

“When the targeted people fear that the majority group members don’t believe them or don’t take them seriously—they become more distressed and less able to communicate. On the other side, when majority group members are anxious and afraid of being perceived as discriminatory, then they are less willing to initiate.”

She explains that social ostracism arises when both sides “shut down” and become isolated resulting in a kind of polarization. Brondolo believes when we understand other people’s reactions and our own to inter-racial tension, “then we can work together more effectively to overcome discrimination.”

Optimism emanates from the researcher/professor as is did from the author, admitting that she loves coming to work everyday because there are solutions.

“Most people have difficulties over the course of their lives, be it a mental illness or encountering racism, but we can reach out to each other and listen. It’s worth taking the risk to talk together.”