Bipolar II disorder involves alternating between depression and which less severe state?

• A. Mania
• B. Hypomania
• C. Delirium
• D. Catatonia

Answer: (B)

Bipolar II disorder cycles between depressive episodes and a milder form of mania called hypomania. Hypomania shares the energized, elevated mood and increased activity seen in mania, but it isn’t as intense and it doesn’t cause the severe impairment or psychotic features that mania often does. That milder, distinctive mood state is what defines the “less severe” side of the pattern in Bipolar II. Delirium and catatonia aren’t mood states that describe bipolar cycling, so they don’t fit as the alternating states.