(Slate) – The criteria for the condition have expanded since the 1980s, scooping up patients who say the diagnosis has steered them down the wrong path.

But some psychiatrists think that the bipolar diagnosis has actually gone too far—that there is a large contingent of patients who have been slapped with a trendy label, the definition of bipolar having drifted far beyond its original meaning. Research indicates that false positives for bipolar disorder may be alarmingly common. In a landmark study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2008, more than half of bipolar patients who were reevaluated were determined to have been misdiagnosed. It’s possible that misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis are widespread issues—but the field continues to be divided on whether misdiagnosis is an issue at all. (Read More)