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MENTAL HEALTH INFORMATION

ADHD and ADD

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common reasons children are referred for mental health services. It affects as many as one in every 20 children. Although boys are...

Addiction/Substance Use Disorder

There are many reasons why people decide to drink and use drugs. But the increasing use of drugs and drinking can come with serious risk and devastating consequences. Substance abuse affects an...

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in older people. A dementia is a medical condition that disrupts the way the brain works. AD affects the parts of the brain that...

Anxiety

Most people experience feelings of anxiety before an important event such as a big exam, business presentation or first date. Anxiety disorders, however, are illnesses that cause people to feel...

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is a mental health disorder characterized by extreme highs and lows in mood and energy. While everyone experiences ups and downs, the severe shifts that happen in bipolar disorder...

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental illness characterized by a persistent preoccupation with at least one perceived defect or flaw in a person's physical appearance, which may not be...

Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a disorder of emotion regulation affecting up to 5% of the population. Up until a few decades ago, those diagnosed with the disorder were thought to be...

Co-Dependency

Co-dependency is a learned behavior that can be passed down from one generation to another. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual's ability to have a healthy...

Co-Occurring: Mental Health and Chronic Illness

Very few people go through life without any chronic health challenges. Cancer, heart disease, chronic pain, diabetes, mental illnesses, and more touch every family at some point...

Co-Occurring: Mental Health and Substance Abuse

Alcohol and other drug abuse and addiction constitute major health and safety concerns in the United States, with costs running into the billions of dollars annually for health care, related injuries...

Conduct Disorder

Conduct disorder is a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in children and adolescents in which the rights of others or basic social rules are violated. The child or adolescent usually...

Depression

Major depression is one of the most common mental illnesses, affecting 6.7% (more than 16 million) a American adults each year. Depression causes people to lose pleasure from daily life, can...

Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders

Dissociation is a mental process that causes a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memory and sense of identity. Dissociation seems to fall on a continuum of severity. Mild dissociation would...

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are real, complex medical and psychiatric illnesses that can have serious consequences for health, productivity and relationships. Eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa,...

Excoriation Disorder (Skin Picking or Dermatillomania)

Excoriation disorder (also referred to as chronic skin-picking or dermatillomania) is a mental illness related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is characterized by repeated picking at one's own...

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by six months or more of chronic, exaggerated worry and tension that is unfounded or much more severe than the normal anxiety most people...

Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities are neurologically-based processing problems. These processing problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing and/or math. They can also interfere...

Mood Disorders

Mood disorders are a category of illnesses that describe a serious change in mood. Illness under mood disorders include: major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder (mania - euphoric, hyperactive,...

Multi-Infarct Dementia

Multi-infarct dementia is the second most common cause of dementia in older people. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish from Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common cause of dementia in...

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) suffer intensely from recurrent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) or rituals (compulsions), which they feel they cannot control. Rituals, such as...

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder is characterized by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear accompanied by physical symptoms that may include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness,...

Paranoia and Delusional Disorders

Paranoia involves intense anxious or fearful feelings and thoughts often related to persecution, threat, or conspiracy. Paranoia occurs in many mental disorders, but is most often present in...

Personality Disorder

Those who struggle with a personality disorder have a great difficulty dealing with other people. They tend to be inflexible, rigid, and unable to respond to the changes and demands of life. People...

Phobias

Everyone feels anxious or uneasy from time to time. Your first day on a new job, planning for a long trip, going to the dentist... your palms sweat, you feel shaky, your heart pounds. Some anxiety...

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

If you have gone through a traumatic experience, it is normal to feel lots of emotions, such as distress, fear, helplessness, guilt, shame or anger. You may start to feel better after days or weeks...

Pregnancy and Postpartum Disorders

Pregnancy and the birth of a child can be a joyous and exciting time, but some women may struggle with their mental health as they transition to motherhood. Mental disorders such as depression...

Psychosis

Psychosis is a general term to describe a set of symptoms of mental illnesses that result in strange or bizarre thinking, perceptions (sight, sound), behaviors, and emotions. Psychosis is a brain-...

Schizoaffective Disorder

Schizoaffective disorder is characterized by persistent symptoms of psychosis resembling schizophrenia with additional periodic symptoms of mood (or affective) disorders...

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious disorder which affects how a person thinks, feels and acts. Someone with schizophrenia may have difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is imaginary; may be...

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Seasonal depression, known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or the "winter blues," is a subtype of depression or bipolar disorder that occurs and ends around the same time every...

Self-Injury (Cutting, Self-Harm or Self-Mutilation)

Self-injury, also known as self-harm, self-mutilation, or self-abuse occurs when someone intentionally and repeatedly harms herself/himself in a way that is impulsive and not intended to be...

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social Anxiety Disorder, sometimes called social phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by extreme fear or anxiety in one or more social settings. Going to a party or even having a one-on-one...

Stress

Stress is a natural part of life. The expressions are familiar to us, "I'm stressed out," "I'm under too much stress," or "Work is one big stress." Stress is hard to define because it means different...

Suicide

A suicide attempt is a clear indication that something is gravely wrong in a person's life. No matter the race or age of the person; how rich or poor they are, it is true that most people who die by...

Tardive Dyskinesia

Tardive dyskinesia is an involuntary movement disorder that may develop after a few months of taking certain medications to treat bipolar disorder, depression, or schizophrenia. These medications...

Trichotillomania (Hair Pulling)

Trichotillomania is a body-focused repetitive behavior classified as an impulse control disorder (along the lines of pyromania, kleptomania, and pathologic gambling) which involves pulling out one...