Generation of life events in bipolar spectrum disorders: a re-examination and extension of the stress generation theory.

The extent to which stress generation occurs in bipolar spectrum disorders (BSD) is not well understood. The present study examined whether 75 BSD participants experienced elevated rates of behavior-dependent life events, as compared with 38 normal control participants. Within the BSD group, we also examined whether depressive or hypomanic symptoms prospectively predicted increases in various types of negative and positive life events. Results indicated that BSD participants experienced overall increases in behavior-dependent events over the follow-up, as compared with normal controls. At the symptom level, the event generation process occurred in more specific event domains. Results suggest that the stress generation theory of unipolar depression can be extended to BSD and that the type of generated events may be polarity-specific.