What is Mental Disorder? A Brief Guide

Estimated read time 3 min read

mental disorders

A psychological disorder is another name that has been given to the mental disorder. It is a pattern of behavioral or mental symptoms that affect most of the areas in life and usually have been observed to be creating distress for people showing such signs and symptoms.

[ad#top]

The classification and diagnosis are important matters. If no single definitive criterion is available for mental illness, then a number of various classifying techniques and diagnosis criteria have started to emerge. Whether or not a set of signs and symptoms and behaviors come under the category of psychological disorder is determined by clinicians who use the diagnostic and statistic manual of mental disorders (DSM – IV-TR), published by the American Psychiatric Association.

Often, published by the World Health Organization (WHO) – the International Classification of Diseases is also put to use. People must understand that getting a diagnosis done is not a mere application of the label to a problem. It is mostly about discovering the treatments, solutions, and information regarding such problems.

Also, recent studies have shown that mental disorders have been much more prevalent than believed to be earlier. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has determined that approximately a share of 26 percent of the American adult citizens of age over 18 years have been known and confirmed to be suffering from some of the other kinds of mental illness in any given year.

[ad#infeed]

The 1994 National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) has shown that a share of 30 percent of total patients who responded had previously experienced signs and symptoms of at least one psychological illness in the year before.

It has also been indicted by the survey that almost half of all of the adults go through some form of mental disorder at one or the other point of life. Approximately 250 distinct mental disorders have been described by the DSM – IV-TR.

Also, most of these diseases come under another category of almost similar or related mental conditions. The most common and prominent diagnostic classifications consist of mood disorders, sleep disorders, somatoform disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, personality disorders, and many more like these mental health conditions.

People should understand on the first and foremost basis that they should never avoid seeking for help or diagnosis just because they tend to fear the social stigma that might arise in the later stage since an effective treatment plan completely revolves around getting a diagnosis properly done as in fact an essential part of the plan itself.

You May Also Like

More From Author