will preventing manic behavior calm the mania?

Let's say a manic person has a delusion that he can build a skyscraper out in the desert somewhere and he continually visits that location.

If you could take his car away so that he can't go there, will that help to calm him down and bring him off the mania? In other words, does letting him continue to behave in a manic way stimulate and reinforce his mania? Or it doesn't matter?

Mania leads to manic behavior so removing a car would not do anything but redirect the manic behavior into something else.

-- Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:57 pm --

Mania leads to manic behavior so removing a car would not do anything but redirect the manic behavior into something else.

Hey Harry Dubois,

Of course, what you're asking is an empirical question and I doubt there's a definite answer, but in my opinion it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to manage someone's behaviour when they're in a manic episode. I think it's much better to encourage the person to get help and give them enough space to work through their intense emotions without provoking them.

Hi

In my experience when someone is high then there are things that can be done to help the behaviour such as enough sleep, good diet and avoiding stimulating environments. This being said the mood will not be totally avoided by managing these things. So yes in your analogy avoiding the desert would help potentially with not building the skyscraper, it will not stop the delusion/mania totally and it may be diverted into something else. This are my thoughts on it anyhow. Others may disagree.

Cracked