French psychiatrist Jean-Pierre Falret. In the early 1850s, Falret identified folie circulaire or “circular insanity”

Prior its classification as “bipolar disorder,” this mood disorder was most widely known as “manic depression” or “manic-depressive illness,” as it was classified in the DSM-II. This name stems from German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin’s attempt to unify manic, depressive, and psychotic mood states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Even to this day, this name continues to have wide support within the mental health community, as many feel that it better reflects their lived experiences. A leading example is preeminent researcher and author Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, who continues to push for the term “manic depression” because, as she says, “The term ‘manic depression’ is the most scientifically accurate [and] most historically descriptive.” Jamison insists that “bipolar” minimizes the illness by suggesting that those with the diagnosis experience only two extreme mood states at opposite poles.

 As a result of the work of French psychiatrist Jean-Pierre Falret. In the early 1850s, Falret identified folie circulaire or “circular insanity”

Bipolar has deep historical roots, even though its name has varied over the centuries. The earliest documentation of this mood disorder dates to the second century with the works of the ancient Greek Aretaeus of Cappadocia, who is now known as the “forgotten physician.”

Aretaeus identified mania and melancholia (depression), believed they shared a common link, and held that they were two forms of the same condition. In his accounts of the symptoms, Aretaeus noted excess joy, grandiose thinking, anger, insomnia, heavy sadness, and dark thoughts

In 1686, Swiss physician Théophile Bonet also associated mania with melancholia, referring to it as “manico-melancolicus.” source