Groups Of Mental Health Disorders

Much like there are different types of physical illness that are considered illnesses, there are different types of mental issues that are considered mental illnesses. Examples of this would be mood disorders which includes depression, bipolar disorder, and much more. This is used to help therapists or other medical health professionals treat their patients. Along with that, each group has a criteria in which places them in that category. For example, a mood disorder is a mental health problem that primarily affects a person's emotional state, in which a person experiences long periods of extreme happiness, extreme sadness, or both.

Mood Disorders

The most common mental illnesses include major depression, dysthymia, and bipolar disorder. If you have a mood disorder, your general emotional state or mood is distorted or inconsistent with your circumstances and interferes with your ability to function. You may be extremely sad, empty or irritable (depressed), or you may have periods of depression alternating with being excessively happy (mania).

Anxiety disorders can also affect your mood and often occur along with depression. Mood disorders may increase your risk of suicide.

Anxiety Disorders

The most common mental illnesses include generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and social anxiety disorder. While anxiety is an expected part of life when taking a test or performing, anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, school work, and relationships.

Treatments for anxiety disorders include psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, medication (anti-anxiety medications, antidepressants, and beta-blockers), support groups, and stress management techniques.

Personality Disorders

The most common mental illnesses include paranoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and avoidant (or anxious) personality disorder. Personality disorders involve long-term patterns of thoughts and behaviors that are unhealthy and inflexible. These behaviors have a tendency to cause severe problems in relationships and work. People with personality disorders typically have trouble dealing with everyday problems and anxieties.

Psychotic Disorders

The most common psychotic disorders include schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, schizophreniform disorder, brief psychotic disorder, delusional disorder, substance-induced psychotic disorder, and more. Psychotic disorders are severe mental disorders that lead to abnormal thinking and perceptions. People with these disorders have a tendency to lose touch with reality. Two of the main symptoms include delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are false beliefs and hallucinations are false perceptions.

Eating Disorders

The most common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.

There is a commonly held misconception that eating disorders are a choice, when they are in fact not anything near the fact. Eating disorders are actually serious and often fatal illnesses that are associated with severe disturbances in people's eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions. Treatment for this can include therapy, counseling, etc.

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