Thursday, February 16, 2023

Living Well with Bipolar Disorder Webinar

7:00 PM to 8:30 PM

What does it mean to live well with bipolar disorder? 

Join the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program for a dialogue about wellness and bipolar disorder. Our team of researchers, clinicians, and Prechter Program participants will discuss what wellness means when living with bipolar disorder, how individual lived experiences shape wellness, and how research plays a role in establishing wellness.  

Dr. Sperry, a researcher in the Prechter Program and Clinical Psychologist in the Bipolar Clinic at Michigan Medicine, will speak about the importance of measuring well-being as an outcome in clinical care and research studies. She will discuss current research that highlights the need to re-define well-being, or, what it means to be living well with bipolar disorder. Dr. Sperry will end by introducing an important new initiative of the Prechter Program, the development of new tools to measure well-being, incorporating the perspective and voices of those with lived experience. 

Prechter Program research participants will share their perspectives on wellness and how to sustain wellness with bipolar disorder in a roundtable discussion. 

Join the Living Well with Bipolar Disorder webinar via Zoom. Register here!

Moderator

Melvin G. McInnis, M.D., FRCPsych

Director, Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program
Thomas B. and Nancy Upjohn Woodworth Professor of Bipolar Disorder and Depression
Professor of Psychiatry

Panelists

Sarah Sperry, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan
Director, Emotion and Temporal Dynamics (EmoTe) Lab

Wendy Ascione-Juska

Prechter Program Research Participant

Wendy was diagnosed with Bipolar I in 2006.  She went through a series of ups and downs with medication and therapy until finding the right cocktail to keep her stable. She credits medication, therapy, and the support of friends and family for keeping her living well with Bipolar Disorder.  Wendy works for the University of Michigan and lives in Ann Arbor with her husband, Paul, her daughter, Genevieve and her dog Gatsby. 

Jack P.

Prechter Program Research Participant

Jack P. is a research participant for the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program. He will join the conversation about wellness. 

Sarah A.

Prechter Program Research Participant

Sarah Adams’s interest in brain health stems from her own experiences with anxiety and depression as well as her family's experience with bipolar disorder. Sarah believes that we can all benefit individually and societally from a shift in mindset when it comes to understanding our brains and mind-body wellness. She finds the mysteries that exist around brain function fascinating. Sarah’s varied interests and skills have led her to work in the startup world, the fitness industry, in government and international development fields, as a forensic scientist, in the bar and restaurant business, and in real estate. She is originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan and holds a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a master’s from George Washington University. She maintains her wellness through movement (pilates, yoga, biking, walking), cooking, music, vegetable gardening, and traveling.

Michael E. Buatti

NAMI Metro; Prechter Program Research Participant

Living with Bipolar 1, Generalized Anxiety and Depression for nearly forty years. Swam competitively in high school which helped with mood stabilization. Upon graduation from Michigan State University, I pursued a career in sales. Made progressively more money while changing jobs with less than a few years of experience due to the high expectations of management. Stabilized in 2012 with my visit to St. Mary’s psych ward for eight days and an outpatient experience for thirty-five days. Focused on getting better following these two experiences. Needed to understand my diagnoses and how to cope with them. It has been eleven years and I live a productive life providing support with National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) as my backstop.