Understanding Mental Health Disorders

Over 300 million people in the world suffer from depression, be it clinical depression or the milder but still chronic form called dysthymia. Most of us can claim some familiarity with the symptoms of this mood disorder, which include:

• Persistent sadness
• Feelings of worthlessness
• Feelings of hopelessness
• Loss of interest in activities that once engaged us

Anxiety, the worry, and fear we experience usually before big events and undertakings have their place in life. However, persistent and disproportionate anxiety should give one cause for concern because it may signify a mental health disorder. Without South Jersey counseling, people with anxiety disorders can find it hard to function from day to day. They may suffer from insomnia, chronic fatigue, and difficulty concentrating.

Formerly known as manic depression, bipolar disorder is characterized by dramatic swings from high moods to low. The high moods, or periods of mania, can lead to impulsive, dangerous behavior while the periods of depression can debilitate the sufferer to the point of being unable to rise from bed.

Knowing schizophrenia, which affects some 24 million people globally, is essential to one’s understanding of mental health disorders. Well-known characteristics of schizophrenia include:

Hallucinations and delusions
Inappropriate, excessive movements
Disorganized thoughts and speech

Schizoaffective disorder is a rare condition marked by symptoms of both schizophrenia and mood disorder. The episodes in this disorder will vary in symptoms and length, with some individuals experiencing repeated episodes. Schizoaffective disorder symptoms usually develop when someone is a young adult.

Many researchers have suggested that schizoaffective disorder sits between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia on the continuum. But, schizoaffective disorder should be recognized as its own separate diagnosis despite being similar to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Renewed Light also offers counseling and treatment for schizoaffective disorder.

Trauma refers to the emotional and mental distress that one feels after a life-changing event. Life-changing events include the loss of a loved one, a car accident, military combat, or rape. This undermines a person’s sense of security to such an extent that it can lead to continual anxiety and/or depression. As for symptoms, these could range from flashbacks to emotional dissociation and fatigue.

OCD combines unhealthy thoughts (obsession) with unhealthy behaviors (compulsions). These thoughts and behaviors recur, though the sufferer does not desire them, and can cause great disruptions in ordinary living.

In individual therapy, the patient speaks one-on-one with a therapist to uncover the roots of his or her disordered thoughts, emotions, and actions. This is done in a private setting so the individual can feel free of fear of judgment.

This involves one or more therapists treating simultaneously a group of individuals with the same disorder. This can aid those with social anxiety disorders and other conditions that keep them from establishing and maintaining healthy relationships.

For disorders that stem from family conflict, one may have the whole family sit down with a therapist to talk over the problems, formulate goals, learn to accept one another’s weaknesses, come to terms with past hurts, and so on.

Some couples in South Jersey get counseling to prepare for marriage, work over the rough patches in their relationship, learn to be responsive to one another’s emotions, and more.

Grief, guilt, regret, anger: these can disrupt a person’s daily life in the wake of bereavement. With the help of counseling, such a person can learn how to share their feelings and grieve in a way that is healthy and accepts the reality of what happened.

Psychotropic medications, such as antidepressants, can relieve the symptoms of a disorder in the short run, but mental health professionals often recommend a combination of medications with therapy.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a brain stimulation treatment that addresses clinical depression. Magnetic pulses stimulate certain regions of the brain that control mood, relieving the symptoms in a non-invasive, drug-free, pain-free manner.