This thesis centers around investigating how young people with a bipolar disorder experience and handle stigmatization from their close relationships, and how social work can constitute to reducing this stigmatization and thus to further the recovery of the young people in question.

Throughout this thesis the qualitative interview has been applied as a method. This approach has been adapted in order to analyze each case in depth and acquire a thorough understanding of each case. Our analysis is based on 6 informants’ experiences and understandings of stigmatization, this in order to capture each informants nuanced and individual experience of stigmatization from their close relationships and how they handle such situations.

Based on the hermeneutical methodology used in this thesis, we approached the topic of the thesis with a preunderstanding and expectations. These preunderstandings have been influenced by new knowledge through the empirical work of the thesis and further into the analysis. Our analysis is, therefore, shaped upon the interaction between empirical work and theory in order to obtain an expository understanding of the informants’ narratives and experiences.

Based on the thesis’s analysis and discussion it can be concluded that the young people do not experience stigmatization in most of their close relationships, and further that they experience a better understanding when surrounded by peers. However, in some close relationships these young people do feel stigmatized, they express that they are not understood or acknowledged. Furthermore, after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder they experience a difference in how their close relationships perceive them, which may be due to them acquiring a better understanding of their behavioral patterns. In addition, these young people experience that their own expectations and their close relationships expectations do not always correspond. This discrepancy arises, as some experience their close relationships’ expectations as stigmatization while others perceive it as caring. Moreover, young people have different behavioral patterns, which are also affected by the way they perceive and relate to their disorder.

We can conclude throughout this thesis, that social work can assist in lowering young people’s experience of stigmatization in their close relationships by introducing psychical sessions, whereby their close relations can achieve a better understanding of the bipolar disorder. Lastly, network meetings has showcased to be a good supplement to psychical session due to its ability to enhance the relations between the humans being diagnosed and their close relationships. However, it is of

importance that these young people simultaneously are also offered individual therapy and peer-support.