Made Plain

The Gift of Bipolar
By Dr. Dan Boynton, Ph.D.

What if your greatest challenges also held the seeds of your greatest strengths?

In The Gift of Bipolar, Dr. Dan Boynton, Ph.D., blends clinical insight with deeply human stories to uncover the surprising strengths hidden within the bipolar experience.

Rather than focusing solely on symptoms and...

What if the problem is not just depression?

What if the crashes, the chaos, the bursts of energy, the sharp turns in mood, and the years of confusion are part of a pattern that no one fully named?

In Bipolar II Made Plain, part of the Made Plain Series, Dr. Dan Boynton explains one of the most misunderstood forms of bipolar disorder in clear,...

What if it is not just depression? What if the reason you never feel fully stable has been there all along, just never clearly named?

Cyclothymic Disorder Made Plain: Why You Never Feel Fully Stable, Why It Gets Missed, and What to Do About It is a straightforward, practical guide to a mood pattern that often goes unnoticed for years.

This book...

When a child’s anger becomes the weather in the house, everyone learns to watch the sky.

Some children do more than have tantrums. Their anger is too big, too frequent, too confusing, and too hard to calm. A simple request can become an hour-long battle. A small disappointment can turn into screaming, threats, tears, shame, or destruction....

Adult ADHD is often misunderstood because it does not always look like hyperactivity, distraction, or irresponsibility.

In real life, adult ADHD may look like chronic overwhelm, scattered effort, unfinished tasks, emotional intensity, lateness, clutter, procrastination, burnout, and private shame. Many adults with ADHD are bright, hardworking,...

You are not bad with people. Your mind has simply learned to treat being seen as a threat.

Social anxiety can make an ordinary conversation feel like an evaluation. You may carefully monitor your words, expressions, posture, and tone while wondering whether everyone can see how uncomfortable you feel. Even after the interaction ends, your mind...

Your mind is always preparing. Even when nothing is wrong, it rarely feels safe to stop thinking.

You replay conversations. You anticipate problems. You plan for what might happen, check what could go wrong, and look for reassurance that only seems to work for a few minutes.

For many people with generalized anxiety disorder, worry does not feel...

Feeling depressed does not always mean you have depression.

You may feel exhausted, empty, unmotivated, hopeless, disconnected, or unlike yourself. But those feelings can come from many different places. Depression may be the right explanation—but it may also be grief, burnout, chronic stress, anxiety, trauma, ADHD, bipolar disorder, a...