Bipolar Advantage

Helping people create better outcomes since 2003.

Bipolar Advantage helps people achieve lasting stability and live well in every mood state through an educational system that transforms awareness into functionality and growth.

Join the Program → See how it works
Since 2003Shaped by thousands of people living it
Tufts UniversityStudied
PCORIReviewed
Yale · BerkeleyResearchers at Yale, UC Berkeley, Maastricht and Barcelona endorse it
The Bipolar IN Order Academy

Live well with bipolar, not just manage it.

You build a personal picture of your environments, behaviors, comfort zones and tools, and that picture becomes a self-management system made for you. It works alongside your doctor and therapist, never in place of medication or therapy.

Nearly everything comes in pairs. Mania and depression each have their own tools, environment ratings, timeline settings and comfort zone thresholds, because the two pull in opposite directions: what helps in depression can be the wrong move in mania, and the reverse is true too.

Bipolar IN Order spectrum: Crisis, Managed, Recovery, Freedom, Stability, Self-Mastery
The path from crisis to self-mastery
What changes

Transform how you live with bipolar.

1

Stability

Turn unpredictable mood swings into states you can navigate with awareness and control — achieving stability without losing your depth or energy.

2

Confidence

Build the self-trust that comes from understanding your patterns and acting intentionally, even during intense moods.

3

Growth

Learn to see meaning, creativity, and purpose in every state — transforming experiences that once held you back into sources of strength.

In the Academy

Small daily steps. Clear patterns.

Daily check-in
The check-in

Thirty seconds, once a day

Once a day you spend about 30 seconds noting your state, your surroundings, your behavior and the tools you used. Those check-ins add up to the record behind your reports and the patterns you start to see.

Graduated timeline
The timeline

Help in steps, before things build

If your check-ins show you moving outside your comfort zone, the program guides you through a response in steps: first noticing, then stronger tools only when you need them.

Shareable reports
Sharing

Your data, your choice

You can share your check-ins, tool use, AI coaching conversations and reports with your therapist, doctor, family or researchers, and you set exactly what each person can see. Your therapist might see the clinical report and tools data while your spouse sees only the weekly summary. You stay in control and can take access away at any time. Every view is logged for HIPAA compliance.

Expert endorsements

What experts are saying about Bipolar IN Order.

Tom's message—and approach—is a welcome antidote to many popular ideas about mental illness. He integrates sound, evidence-based tools (such as self-awareness, self-care, and medication) with an especially humane perspective. Too often, in having to accept their condition, people end up feeling pathologized - reduced from a full person to a label. But Tom looks beyond the diagnosis to help people embrace—and accept—the best parts of who they are, instead of reflexively dismissing their feelings and experiences as a simple manifestation of illness. I can't think of a more important ingredient to living with bipolar disorder or any mental health difficulty.
Craig Malkin, PhDClinical Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School
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 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
Bipolar IN Order explores the positive value of mania and depression, linking it to Eastern traditions of mental discipline, while at the same time appreciating the need for warranted medical diagnosis and treatment.
S. Nassir Ghaemi, MD MPHProfessor of Psychiatry, Director of Mood Disorders Program, Tufts Medical Center
Bipolar In Order provides the essential message that symptom reduction or elimination is far from the main goal of adaptation and intervention. Sure to challenge traditional thinking, this important work is integrative and wise.
Stephen P. Henshaw, PhDProfessor and Chair, Dept of Psychology, UC Berkeley
Students

What our students say.

I was desperate for help and Bipolar IN Order delivered. I learned how to identify my feelings, the changes in my thinking during mood swings and my initial reactions to them. Realizing I had a choice in how to respond instead of just reacting was pivotal. This tool, combined with others, has morphed into a great practice for self examination in the IN Order stages. It is one of the components that taught me discipline and self-control throughout my journey to Bipolar IN Order. What I've learned will serve me well for the rest of my life. Life is finally good.
Jeanette Chiapperino
Bipolar IN Order has made a tremendously positive influence on my life. It teaches a way of looking at mental illness that has helped me turn it into mental health. Tom is a visionary and an outstanding guide. If you put enough time and effort into the course, it will change your life.
Candy Czernicki
Bipolar Advantage transcends the paradigm of bipolar disorder treatment: the focus shifts from eliminating it, to accepting and increasing functionality while going through it. Bipolar In Order has changed my life for the better- after years of failure. I think it is a great resource for anyone interested.
Maritere Berrios Pizarro
Tom Wootton, founder of Bipolar Advantage
Our founder

Meet Tom Wootton.

Tom Wootton founded Bipolar Advantage in 2003 and created the Bipolar IN Order program. He is the author of The Bipolar Advantage, The Depression Advantage and Bipolar IN Order. Having lived with bipolar disorder for decades, he built the program from the inside out, together with thousands of fellow patients, doctors, therapists and family members.

Ready to start?

Join the Bipolar IN Order Academy.

Join thousands of people who have learned to live well with bipolar through the Bipolar IN Order Academy.

Join the Program →

If cost is a barrier, scholarships are available through Bipolar & Depression Outcomes Research Institute (BDORI).