[Hyperthymic disorders]

Abstract

Hyperthymia, as referring to the book by J. Delay: "les dérèglements de l'humeur" (1946), means from a clinical point of view, an exaggeration of the level of mood, as well on the one hand, expansive and joyful, as, on the other hand, distressing, within a withdrawn self. K. Schneider had described an hyperthymic personality in 1923: optimist, dynamic, taking initiatives, or more simply hypomanic. He opposed this type of personality to depressive personality types. Delay unified these two pathologic evolutions within a physiopathological and psychopathological unique concept. Conversely, H. Ey denied this unique affective conceptualization of the disease. From his physiopathologic jacksonian point of view, a certain level of destruction of consciousness explains, solely, both affective and noetic disorganization of these so called hyperthymias. Since the early eighties, Angst, Akiskal, Cassano, brought up to date the adjective hyperthymic. They assessed the correlation between premorbid personality disorder and mood disorder: a number of bipolar disorders are linked with premorbid hyperthymic disorders. This was the K. Schneider' position who linked traits and states, as Kraepelin did for the manic premorbid disposition. Choosing a dimensional approach, one question has to be asked: can hyperthymia be found as a previous personality trait of different other diseases? An anxious hyperthymia can be found linked to some panic attacks and other neurotic symptoms. A delusional hyperthymia is described by Janzarik who thinks that delusional ideas are linked to a kind of delusional mood. G. Petit, in 1933, subsumed the existence of a paranoid hyperthymia within the more general concept of the passional psychoses described by de Clérambault, Delmas and Borel.