Mental Time Travel and Identity in Bipolar Disorder Patients

Study design: case / control study in inclusion prospective, single center. population:

• A group of 30 patients aged 18 to 60 years and followed in the psychiatry department of adult CHU Reims for bipolar disorder type I (DSM-IV criteria).
• A group of 30 control subjects with no personal or family history of severe psychiatric disorder (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder), recruited from the staff of the University Hospital of Reims, the medical faculty of Reims or Marnais center health promotion of Reims, via the intranet and paper display.

The two groups will be matched for age (± 3 years), sex and educational level (± 2 years).

Plan of investigation: the study will be done in two visits:

• The first visit by a psychiatrist for:

  • information on the objectives and the methods of research, verification criteria for inclusion and non-inclusion and participation of obtaining consent (written consent)
  • comprehensive psychiatric evaluation and procurement different scales (anxiety scale, Hamilton depression scale, evaluation of verbal IQ, ...).
• 2nd visit, a maximum of 15 days after the first visit by a psychologist, neuropsychologist for the award of the memories of love and future projections defining self: the experimenter asks the subjects to relate memories 3 and 3 future projections. It is important personal events that arouse strong emotions and that the subjects often think.

Memories and projections reported by the subjects are then classified according to their emotional valence, their content, significance and degree of integration itself.