The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) is the leading national organization focused on depression and bipolar disorder. DBSA provides peer-led support, trusted resources, and wellness tools for individuals living with mood disorders—as well as for their family members, friends, parents, and caregivers. The organization fosters an environment of understanding about the impact and management of these life threatening illnesses by providing up-to-date, scientifically-based tools and information written in language the general public can understand.  DBSA supports research to promote more timely diagnoses, develop more effective and tolerable treatments, and to discover a cure.  The organization works to ensure that people living with mood disorders are treated equally.

Aiming to address the gap in access to mental health care by providing peer-led support groups, DBSA holds more than 20,000 support group meetings annually.  Research conducted by Pepperdine University showed participants reported higher levels of understanding and acceptance of their mental health condition, confidence about their treatment, optimism and control over their future, and self-esteem.

DBSA was started in 1978 by Rose Kurland, a woman living with bipolar disorder in Illinois who saw the need for a support group that would be specific to depression and bipolar disorder. DBSA came to WV in 2005 when Tom Stenger, a Vietnam veteran, started the Ohio Valley Chapter in Wheeling. DBSA WV became a state organization in 2008.

Past DBSA WV media releases: