Athanasios koukopoulos’ psychiatry: The primacy of mania and the limits of antidepressants

Abstract

© 2017 Bentham Science Publishers. Background: Athanasios Koukopoulos provided a radical model for understanding depressive and manic conditions. Objective: To review, explain, and analyze Koukopoulos’ concept of the primacy of mania, with special attention to the role of antidepressants. Method: A conceptual review of Koukopoulos’ writings and lectures on this topic is given._ Results: Koukopoulos held that depressive states are caused by manic states; the former do not occur without the latter. The most common scenario of the inseparability of depressive and manic symptoms occurs in mixed states, which we estimate to represent about one-half of all depressive episodes in all patients (not just bipolar illness). In a review of the empirical evidence for this topic, we conclude that empirical evidence exists to support the primary of mania thesis in almost 80% of depressed patients. Since antidepressants worsen mania, they would be expected to worsen depression as well in this model. W