What Mental Health Professionals are saying

I learned how to be more empathetic & understanding towards my clients. There's a lot of education that professionals need to get from people with bipolar. I feel EVERYONE can learn from this seminar. It has opened up my mind a lot more about what bipolar people experience.

The most valuable thing I learned is that acceptance is a huge part of healing. Also, that people with bipolar have a different depression at level 2 on scale as compared to people with situational depression.

Angela Tracy, MFT
San Ramon, CA


Tom is doing something no one else is really doing. He is turning a serious mental illness on its head and suggesting that by accepting rather than fighting the disorder, people with bipolar can identify and access their strengths and lead lives that are not only satisfying but productive beyond their wildest imaginings. Tom is standing up to the pervasive deficit-based view of people with psychiatric disorders that is held by both mental health professionals and the lay public alike and saying with grace, humor, and the strength of personal experience that it is possible to take this disorder and live abundantly and creatively. Tom is helping people to both face up to their illness and to resist accepting a diminished story of their lives and futures through self-acceptance and cooperation with caring psychiatrists and therapists. Tom is ahead of the pack. He is staking out new territory and leading the way in showing people with brain-based disorders like bipolar that it is possible to live richly.

Maureen Duffy Ph.D.
Professor and Chairperson, The Counseling Program
Barry University
Miami Shores, Florida


I can learn a lot more about taking care of myself from my clients. We are not as different from each other as we think we are.

Tom was very effective and inspirational. I absolutely will recommend this seminar to clients, other professionals, and family and friends who would be interested.

Personally, the most valuable thing I take home is a plan for introspection & to practice meditation daily. Professionally, a much greater, more thorough understanding for those living with bipolar disorder.

Please identify me as a licensed MFT. Hopefully this will attract more professionals.

Kristina Schasker, MFT
San Ramon, CA


I met Tom at a talk I was giving about my book, a talk about dealing with the mania of bipolar disorder. He came up to me afterwards, enthusiastic and supportive of my work. So often other authors are reserved about other authors' work. Not Tom.

Then, while waiting for Bipolar Advantage to be printed, he recorded an interview with me for his podcast. He is other-focused and generous-although we are both brand new authors, not once have I felt even a dab of competitiveness from him.

To say that Tom Wootton is "out there" is an understatement. He's seen and done it all, or so it seems by his story. Yet he is willing at this stage in his life to view himself as a beginner. Boldly writing a book about bipolar when he states clearly that he has only been diagnosed for two years, he retains an spirited hopefulness.

Tom is humble; Tom is full of himself. Tom is serious and poignant; Tom is hilarious. Tom's writing style is conversational, open and straightforward. Yet his book is anything but a straightforward story. Like a snowball rolling down a gravelly hill, he picks up all sorts of pieces along the way.

My favorite chapter of his book is entitled "Relationships," which begins like this: "If you don't have ruined relationships in your past, you better have your diagnosis checked; you are probably not bipolar." Tom credits his wife Ellen with helping him keep his zest from becoming mania.

This is one of those books that accelerates the farther into it you get. Like a magnet increasing in power with each page, this book pulled me in more and more. By the end I was so deeply involved that I kept turning pages after the books was finished!

Judy Eron, LCSW
Author of What Goes Up. . .Surviving the Manic Episode of a Loved One