Conditions & Disorders

General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) includes frequent worrying that is out of proportion with the impact of events, overthinking solutions, difficulty recognizing whether or not events are threatening, problems with uncertainty, regular indecisiveness, and the inability to relax. There may be times when the worries don’t completely consume a person, but they still feel anxious even when there’s no apparent reason.

Adjustment disorders are stress-related conditions. You experience more stress than would normally be expected in response to a stressful or unexpected event, and the stress causes significant problems in your relationships, at work or at school.

An adjustment disorder is an emotional and/or behavioral reaction to a stressful event or change in a person’s life. The reaction is considered an unhealthy or excessive response to the event or change within three months of it happening. This stressful or unexpected event can cause significant problems in relationships, on the work front, at school or in house and home management.

Stressful events or changes in the life of the individual may be a family move, a parents’ divorce or separation, the loss of a child, sibling, parent or pet, the birth of a baby or sibling. A sudden illness or restriction to a person’s life due to chronic disease may also result in an adjustment response.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by extremely low body weight and low BMI (body mass index), extreme and unnecessary weight loss, unreasonable fear of weight gain, and a distorted perception of one’s own body. Anorexic individuals fixate on staying thin and pursuing abnormal eating patterns such as starving themselves.

Bulimia nervosa, also known as binge eating disorder, is an eating disorder characterized by consuming abnormally large amounts of food in a short time period, followed by an attempt to avoid gaining weight by purging. Purging methods include forced vomiting, overuse of laxatives, and extreme periods of exercise. These behaviors are often done in secret, which can hide the disorder from others for extended periods of time.

Binge eating disorder is compulsive overeating of abnormal amounts of food while feeling unable to stop. Binge eating episodes occur a minimum of twice per week for six months. It often leads to unwanted weight gain or obesity, which can indirectly reinforce more compulsive eating. People who have a binge eating disorder often struggle with feelings of self-loathing, guilt, depression, or anxiety.

Acute trauma is also known as acute stress disorder and can develop following a person’s exposure to a specific traumatic event. That event could be a violent attack or rape, an automobile accident, or being involved in a natural disaster, among other things.

Individuals can experience a vast range of physical and psychological symptoms similar to those experienced by people diagnosed with PTSD. The difference between acute trauma and PTSD is that acute trauma is seen as a short-term condition that could go away within a few days or weeks. However, many who have acute trauma will go on to develop PTSD — a potentially more severe, and longer-lasting mental health condition — if they do not seek therapeutic intervention.

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act, war/combat, or rape or who have been threatened with death, sexual violence or serious injury.

People with PTSD have intense, disturbing thoughts and feelings related to their experience that last long after the traumatic event has ended. They may relive the event through flashbacks or nightmares; they may feel sadness, fear or anger; and they may feel detached or estranged from other people. People with PTSD may avoid situations or people that remind them of the traumatic event, and they may have strong negative reactions to something as ordinary as a loud noise or an accidental touch.

The terms grief, bereavement, and loss are often intertwined and sometimes even used interchangeably, but each one actually has a very different meaning. Grief is the emotional experience or reaction to any kind of loss. This can include the loss of a job or house, loss of income, loss of posessions, status or a divorce. When that loss is associated with the death of a loved one, the term bereavement is often used.