Disorders
There are
many different categories of mental disorder, and many different facets
of human behavior and personality that can become disordered.
The state
of anxiety or fear can become disordered, so that it is unusually intense
or generalized over a prolonged period of time. Commonly recognized
categories of anxiety disorders include specific phobia, Generalized
anxiety disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia,
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-traumatic stress disorder. Relatively
long lasting affective states can also become disordered. Mood disorder
involving unusually intense and sustained sadness, melancholia or despair
is know as Clinical depression (or Major depression), and may more generally
be described as Emotional dysregulation. Milder but prolonged depression
can be diagnosed as dysthymia. Bipolar disorder involves abnormally
"high" or pressured mood states, known as mania or hypomania,
alternating with normal or depressed mood. Whether unipolar and bipolar
mood phenomena represent distinct categories of disorder, or whether
they usually mix and merge together along a dimension or spectrum of
mood, is under debate in the scientific literature.
next
>>