Based on the phenomenological tradition of psychopathology, this article aims to contribute to the comprehension of the world as experienced by bipolar patients, which is characterized by a strong shift in the experience of time. A different description of the experienced time was made for the manic and depressive phase. During a depressive phase the bipolar patient seems to stop in time. In the manic phase, the subject lives completely focused on the here and now, as if his there has been no life before the present. We conclude that these phases, or the two opposite poles in the pathologic operation of time of bipolar suffering, are fundamentally part of the same experienced world of bipolar patiens.
bipolar disorder; lived time; phenomenological psychopathology