Addendum D: Cyclothymic Personality
Source: Mark Goulston, M.D., author of the new bestselling book Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone.
Cyclothymic Personality is characterized by a pervasive pattern of pronounced changes in mood, behavior, thinking, sleep, and energy levels, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by seven (or more) of the following:
•has depressive periods: depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities and pastimes alternating with hypomanic periods: elevated, expansive, or irritable mood;
•has a decreased need for sleep alternating with sleeping too much;
•has shaky self-esteem with naive grandiose overconfidence alternating with lack of self-confidence;
•has periods of sharpened and creative thinking alternating with periods of mental confusion and apathy;
•displays marked unevenness in the quantity and quality of productivity, often associated with unusual working hours;
•engages in uninhibited people-seeking (that may lead to hyper-sexuality) alternating with introverted self-absorption;
•becomes excessively involved in pleasurable activities with lack of concern for the high potential of painful consequences alternating with restriction of involvement in pleasurable activities and guilt over past activities;
•alternates between over-optimism or exaggeration of past achievement and a pessimistic attitude toward the future, or brooding about past events;
•is more talkative than usual, with inappropriate laughing, joking, and punning, and then less talkative, with tearfulness or crying;
•frequently shifts line of work, study, interest, or future plans;
•engages in occasional financial extravagance;
•makes frequent changes in residence or geographical location;
•has a tendency toward promiscuity, with repeated conjugal or romantic failure;
•may use alcohol or drugs to control moods or to augment excitement;
