Mental Disorders: Symptoms and Characteristics

Phobic Disorders

Phobic disorders are characterized by a persistent and irrational fear of objects, activities, or situations. This fear causes the individual to avoid these stimuli, despite recognizing that the fear is excessive or unreasonable.

  • Agoraphobia: The most serious phobia, where individuals are unable to leave home or stay in unfamiliar places.
  • Social Phobia: An irrational fear of situations where one can be observed by others.
  • Simple Phobia: An irrational fear of a specific object or situation, such as dogs, heights, mice, snakes, or death.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsessions: Thoughts, images, or impulses that repeatedly and persistently come to mind, despite the individual’s recognition of their absurdity.

Compulsions: Repetitive and irrational behaviors that the subject feels forced to perform. If the compulsion is not carried out, it creates a state of anxiety.

Hysterical or Somatoform Disorders

The presence of physical symptoms for which no organic basis can be found. The patient exhibits a series of physical demonstrations that are not feigned.

Depression

  • Sad and hopeless mood
  • Sleep disorders: increased or decreased sleep
  • Appetite disorders: increased or decreased appetite
  • Concentration problems
  • Loss of energy and interest in activities previously enjoyed (anhedonia)
  • Loss of sexual interest
  • Selective report: Focus on negative events

Mania

  • Expansive euphoria
  • Irritability and hostility
  • Acceleration of thought processes and verbiage
  • High self-esteem, delusions
  • Hyperactivity: increased sexual activity
  • Neglect of hygiene and personal appearance
  • Hypermnesia for positive topics
  • Insomnia; the individual does not feel sick
  • Excessive expenditure of money

Personality Disorders

  • Paranoid Personality Disorder: Suspicion, distrust, hypersensitivity.
  • Antisocial Personality Disorder: Chronic behavior that violates the rights of others, beginning before age 15.
  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Fantasies of unlimited success, requires the attention of others, responds with anger to criticism or failure.
  • Histrionic Personality Disorder: Overly dramatic behavior, temper tantrums, vanity, unreasonable demands, need for security and handling.
  • Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder: Indirect resistance to demands to perform a task, using maneuvers such as loitering, inefficiency, or neglect.
  • Dependent Personality Disorder: Lack of self-confidence that leads to letting others take responsibility for one’s life and make important decisions.
  • Compulsive Personality Disorder: Perfectionism, insistence that others do things their way, adherence to work.

Schizophrenia

  • Disturbances in thought content: Individuals may believe they are being pursued or that others can hear their thoughts.
  • Loss of associative ability: Moving from one unrelated topic to another.
  • Vague speech: When words are invented (neologisms).
  • Hallucinations: Hearing voices, seeing apparitions, or having unusual tactile feelings.
  • Withdrawal from the real world into a personal world.

Paranoia

  • Delusion of Persecution: The most frequent type. Individuals are certain they are suffering persecution.
  • Jealous Delusion: Pathological jealousy.
  • Erotomanic Delusion: The patient’s belief of being loved by someone, often of a higher social rank. It is more common in women.

Autism

Starts within 30 months of age. These children create a closed and impenetrable world, with a total loss of contact with reality. The main manifestations are:

  • Limited social interaction.
  • Problems with verbal and nonverbal communication.
  • Problems with imagination: lack of interest in games, creative activities, and limited, intense, or unusual interests.

Anorexia Nervosa

  • Intense fear of gaining weight.
  • Body image disturbance; individuals often look in the mirror and perceive themselves as obese.
  • Loss of at least 15% of original body weight.
  • Absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles.
  • Absence of somatic diseases justifying the weight loss.
  • May have episodes of bulimia, often followed by vomiting.
  • Feelings of guilt for having eaten.
  • Hyperactivity and excessive physical exercise.
  • Changes in character; individuals often deny the illness and resist treatment.
  • Weight loss often requires hospitalization, and death can occur.

Bulimia Nervosa

  • Recurrent episodes of voracious intake: rapid consumption of large quantities of food in a short period.
  • Feeling of lack of control over eating during binge-eating episodes, followed by feelings of guilt.
  • The person strives to induce vomiting, use laxatives or diuretics, practice strict dieting or fasting, or exercise excessively to prevent weight gain.
  • A minimum average of two binge-eating episodes per week for at least three months.
  • Persistent preoccupation with body shape and weight.
  • Weight may be normal or even high.