Psychological Distress and Mental Disorders: A Guide to Symptoms and Diagnostic Criteria

Information About Depression and Other Psychological Distress

Large general health and mental health sites across the internet carry vast volumes of information about depression and other common forms of psychological distress. The section on Other Web Resources includes links to some of these, including probably the best resource, a search engine for the National Library of Medicine.

This section doesn’t aim to compete with these large repositories, and much more information certainly can be found elsewhere. Nonetheless, clients frequently appreciate concise summaries of key facts about particular forms of pyschological distress, including symptoms and diagnostic criteria. This section provides this information for some of the most common kinds of psychological distress, as well as including some additional resources from the US National Institute of Mental Health.

Types of Distress Covered

This section includes several subsections covering Mood Disorders and Anxiety Disorders , Eating Disorders, Schizophrenic Disorders, ADHD, and more.

Anxiety Disorders

The Anxiety Disorders section addresses DSM criteria for:

• Panic Disorder (both Without Agoraphobia and With Agoraphobia)
• Agoraphobia Without a History of Panic Disorder
• Specific Phobia (sometimes called Simple Phobia)
• Social Phobia (sometimes called Social Anxiety Disorder)
• OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
• PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder)
• Acute Stress Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Our separate section on psychological testing and screening also includes tests relevant to anxiety disorders.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The ICD and the DSM differ in their approach to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), with the former dubbing it a hyperkinetic disorder and the latter opting for the broader classification of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Our separate section on psychological testing and screening also includes a screening test for Adult ADHD.

Autistic Spectrum Disorders

The ICD specifies autistic spectrum disorders, which fall within the broader classification of pervasive developmental disorders, under the following main headings:

• Childhood autism
• Atypical autism
• Rett’s syndrome
• Other childhood disintegrative disorder
• Overactive disorder associated with mental retardation and stereotyped movements
• Asperger’s syndrome

This section also features new articles from the NIMH, including a detailed autism spectrum overview, a summary of autism research, and a brief autism summary. The section also provides a brief overview of autism in children and adolescents.

Eating Disorders

The ICD specifies eating disorders under the following main headings:

• Anorexia nervosa
• Atypical anorexia nervosa
• Bulimia nervosa
• Atypical bulimia nervosa
• Overeating associated with other psychological disturbances
• Vomiting associated with other psychological disturbances
• Other eating disorders
• Eating disorder, unspecified

Mood Disorders

The Mood Disorders section covers DSM criteria for:

• Major Depressive Disorder (sometimes called clinical depression)
• Cyclothymia (Cyclothymic Disorder)
• Dysthymia (Dysthymic Disorder)
• Bipolar Disorder (sometimes called manic depression)

It also covers ‘mood episodes’, including:

• Major Depressive Episode
• Manic Episode
• Mixed Episode
• Hypomanic Episode

These ‘episodes’ are not diagnosed separately, but rather serve as the components for diagnosis of the actual disorders.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s guide to Understanding Depression also explores causes, treatment and symptoms.

Our separate section on psychological testing and screening also includes several screening tests for depression, including the Goldberg depression test, the QIDS depression test, and others, plus screening tests for bipolar disorder and mania.

Paraphilias

Paraphilias are sexual impulse disorders characterized by intensely arousing, recurrent sexual fantasies, urges and behaviors that are considered deviant with respect to cultural norms and that produce clinically significant distress:

• Exhibitionism
• Fetishism
• Frotteurism
• Pedophilia
• Sexual Masochism
• Sexual Sadism
• Transvestic Fetishism
• Voyeurism

Personality Disorders

The ICD categorizes specific personality disorders (as distinct from ‘mixed and other personality disorders’ and other ‘disorders of adult personality and behaviour’) under the following main headings:

• Anankastic Personality Disorder (Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder)
• Antisocial Personality Disorder (Dissocial Personality Disorder)
• Avoidant Personality Disorder (Anxious Personality Disorder)
• Borderline Personality Disorder (Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder)
• Dependent Personality Disorder
• Histrionic Personality Disorder
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Paranoid Personality Disorder
• Schizoid Personality Disorder

The set of common diagnostic guidelines which apply to all personality disorders under the ICD-10 classification system is provided separately. This section also features an additional NIMH article on borderline personality disorder.

This section preserves a selection of material from the former non-profit organization the Personality Disorders Foundation; additional material is included in our extensive annotated research bibliography, now hosted on a dedicated site of its own at CounsellingBooks.com.

Finally, this section also provides Dr Joseph M Carver’s introduction to Personality Disorders in Relationships, along with a professionally translated Spanish version, Personas con Trastornos de la Personalidad.

Schizoaffective Disorders

The ICD specifies schizoaffective disorders under the following main headings:

• Schizoaffective disorder
  • Schizoaffective disorder, manic type
  • Schizoaffective disorder, depressive type

Schizophrenic Disorders

As in the case of many other forms of psychological distress, the ICD and DSM take somewhat different approaches to diagnosis and classification of mental disorders. We provide the complete documentation from each approach here:

DSM Approach to Schizophrenic Disorders

• Schizophrenia
• Schizophreniform Disorder
• Schizoaffective Disorder
• Schizoid Personality Disorder
• Schizotypal Personality Disorder

ICD Approach to Schizophrenic Disorders

• Schizophrenia
• Paranoid Schizophrenia
• Hebephrenic Schizophrenia
• Catatonic Schizophrenia
• Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
• Post-Schizophrenic Depression
• Residual Schizophrenia
• Simple Schizophrenia

Related Topics

This section also covers two additional areas which are not normally considered mental health disorders, but which may exacerbate the symptoms of other forms of psychological distress or even bring them about.

Sleep Disorders

This section provides information on some of the more common sleep disorders, including:

• Insomnia
• Sleep Apnea
• Restless Legs Syndrome
• Narcolepsy

In addition, the section includes a separate article on hypersomnia.

Chronic Pain and Illnesses

This final section addresses medical conditions which may have a profound effect on existence as a result of causing their sufferers chronic pain. While not mental health issues in and of themselves, living with them certainly can be. They include:

• Arthritis and Rheumatic Diseases
• Back Pain and Other Pain
• Celiac Disease
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis)
• Digestive Diseases
• Fibromyalgia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Pain - General

Medications for Anxiety Disorders and Mood Disorders

The separate Medications Centre provides basic information on some of the drugs most frequently prescribed for the treatment of anxiety disorders and mood disorders, including household names such as Effexor, Paxil, Wellbutrin and Xanax.

A Word About Diagnostic Labels Like ‘Clinical Depression’ or ‘Bipolar Disorder’

Labels such as ‘clinical depression’ and the symptoms cited by psychiatrists as the determining criteria for applying such labels draw considerable criticism both within and outside counselling and psychotherapy. However, the question of whether one wishes to employ labels of this kind is, in the view of this site, separate from the question of whether it is useful for practitioners to be aware of their defining symptoms. For better or worse, it is a fact that the psychiatric profession makes use of standardized methods of classifying distress and standard references for diagnostic criteria (such as the DSM-IV TR). It is a fact that many clients would like straight answers about these methods and what the diagnostic criteria mean. Individual pages on diagnostic criteria, such as those on Clinical Depression Symptoms, Manic Depression Symptoms, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Symptoms each provide a link to some additional background comments on the use of these lists of symptoms.