Mental health disorders
Mental Health Disorders
Mental health disorders or mental illnesses are a wide range of conditions that affect mood, thinking, and behavior. These disorders can occur at any time in life, but some are more common among certain age groups. Mental health disorders can be chronic or episodic, and many can be managed with treatment.
Pronunciation
Men-tal Health Dis-or-ders
Etymology
The term "mental health disorder" is derived from the Latin word "mens" meaning "mind", and the Greek word "disorder" meaning "disruption".
Types of Mental Health Disorders
There are several types of mental health disorders, including:
- Anxiety disorders: These disorders involve excessive fear or anxiety. They include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder.
- Mood disorders: These disorders, also called affective disorders, involve persistent feelings of sadness or periods of feeling overly happy, or fluctuations from extreme happiness to extreme sadness. The most common mood disorders are depression, bipolar disorder, and cyclothymic disorder.
- Psychotic disorders: Psychotic disorders involve distorted awareness and thinking. Two of the most common symptoms of psychotic disorders are hallucinations and delusions.
- Eating disorders: Eating disorders involve preoccupation with food and body weight. Examples include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder.
- Personality disorders: These are a group of mental health disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the individual's culture. These patterns develop early, are inflexible, and are associated with significant distress or disability.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): PTSD is a mental health disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, or other threats on a person's life.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): OCD is a mental disorder in which a person feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly (compulsions), or has certain thoughts repeatedly (obsessions).
Treatment
Treatment for mental health disorders usually involves a combination of medication and psychotherapy. The type of treatment will depend on the specific disorder and the individual's personal needs.
See Also
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