Adjustment Disorder With Disturbance Mood Conduct

Learn More About Adjustment Disorder With Disturbance Conduct and Depressed Mood

Diagnosis – in professional terms

Diagnostic Criteria

The development of emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable stressor(s) occurring within 3 months of the onset of the stressor(s)

The emotional or behavioral symptoms include depressive symptoms and a change in the individuals conduct as evidenced by

  • Fighting
  • Reckless driving
  • Ignoring bills
  • Avoiding family or friends
  • Performing poorly in school or at work
  • Skipping school

About Depression

Forget the professional garbage, what does this disorder look like and feel like?

Emotional symptoms of adjustment disorders

Signs and symptoms of adjustment disorder may affect how you feel and think about yourself or life, and are displayed differently in children than in adults. The possible symptoms include:

  • Sadness
  • Hopelessness
  • Lack of enjoyment
  • Crying spells
  • Nervousness
  • Anxiety, which may include separation anxiety
  • Worry
  • Desperation
  • Trouble sleeping
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Feeling overwhelmed
  • Thoughts of suicide

Behavioral symptoms of adjustment disorders

Signs and symptoms of adjustment disorder may affect your actions or behavior, such as:

  • Fighting
  • Reckless driving
  • Ignoring bills
  • Avoiding family or friends
  • Performing poorly in school or at work
  • Skipping school

Length of symptoms

How long you have symptoms of an adjustment disorder also can vary:

  • 6 months or less (acute). In these cases, symptoms should ease once the stressor is removed. Brief professional treatment may help symptoms disappear
  • More than 6 months (chronic). In these cases, symptoms continue to bother you and disrupt your life. Professional treatment may help symptoms improve and prevent the condition from continuing to get worse.

The key when looking at adjustment disorders is to understand that something happened in your life that has been difficult to adjust to. It takes our minds a bit of time to change and adapt to new events or happenings – when a large event happens, or when a lot of events happen in a short period of time, our minds can't keep up and get overwhelmed. When this overwhelming happens, symptoms occur as a result. If the major event were removed from your life, you would experience a reduction in your symptoms.

This can feel anywhere from frustrated and agitated to overwhelmed with sadness and grief. Sometimes people don't notice a change in their emotions, but will notice changes in their behavior first, which alerts them that something is wrong.

Look back in your life for a time when you can tell that you didn't have any symptoms, and then look for a time that you know that symptoms occurred. If there was a life change that happened in the time between no symptoms, and noticing symptoms, chances are you have an adjustment disorder.

What causes this disorder?

Our minds are always making up new rules for living life – in psychology we call these rules “core beliefs”. When new events happen our minds try to use new information to help change the way we view ourselves, or the world around us.

When a major event happens to us, sometimes our minds are not able to adapt quickly enough. This can cause our core beliefs to create inner conflict. Inner conflict causes anxiety, depression, changes in behavior, mood, and other symptoms that are present with an adjustment disorder.

What are my treatment options?

 

Symptom Checker
The symptom checker will assess you for every symptom currently in use in the mental health field including depression, anxiety, stress, Bi-polar, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD), personality disorders, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and more.
 

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