Home
Psychologists
Hypnosis
Types of Therapists
Stop Smoking
Weight Control
Attention deficit disorder
Marriage therapists
Office Locations
Sexual problems
Panic attacks
Pain Control
Child therapy
Marvin S. Beitner, Ph.D.
Check Qualifications
Types of Symptoms
Types of Psychotherapy
Self-improvement
Multiple Personality
OCPA Psychologist
Eating Disorders
Executive & Life Coaching
Audiotapes
Telephone tapes
Self-Help Books
Gay & Lesbian Issues
Psychology News
Depression
Managed care
Privacy

Symptoms of emotional problems can take many forms. Some are obvious; some are difficult to recognize and identify. Types of emotional disorders can be loosely categorized as follows. 
Category D includes the most common kinds of problems. 

(A) Psychoses
(B) Drug induced disorders 
(C) Disorders secondary to brain damage or other medical illness
(D) Emotional disorders.

(A) Psychoses include extremely serious mental disorders which cause people to lose contact with reality, to see or hear things that are not really there (hallucinations) or to have obviously distorted and unrealistic thoughts (delusions). These disorders usually render a person unable to care for themselves. These people may require extensive psychiatric hospitalization, or they may respond well to outpatient psychotropic medications. Without proper treatment, they may wander the streets as homeless persons.

(B) Drug induced disorders may result in a wide variety of symptoms secondary to substance abuse.  In these cases the substance abuse problem must be eliminated before the symptoms can be addressed.

(C) Brain damage due to head trauma, running extremely high temperatures, diseases such as Alzheimer's or having impaired brain function due to the effects of an organic disease is another category of disorders which can result in a wide variety of symptoms.

(D) Emotional disorders are the most common of all. Exaggerated examples of such symptoms are often portrayed in television or motion pictures, such as Frasier, or the old Bob Newhart show, The Odd Couple or the Jack Nicholson movie, "As Good As It Gets." Such movie and television characters may portray a variety of symptoms of emotional disorders, such as constant feelings of inferiority, an  obsessive fear of germs or illness, constant fears of having cancer, a heart attack, or some other dread disease, or fears of elevators or enclosed places.

Excessive and persistent fears of some form of disease is called hypochondriasis, from which the term hypochondriac is derived. Excessive, persistent and repetitive thoughts are called obsessions. Unreasonable repetitive actions such as constantly checking and rechecking that the gas is off, or that the door is locked are called compulsions. Often these kinds of symptoms occur in combinations rather than distinct forms.  For example, a person might constantly feel compelled to wash his hands because of obsessive thoughts about germs and in connection with hypochondriacal fears of illness.

Emotional distress confined mainly to fears may be classified as phobias.  These could include a fear of animals, or heights, or enclosed places. Usually a person will simply avoid the feared situation, a limitation which may become an increasingly serious problem in their life. Some people feel like they are in a constant state of anxiety, not necessarily associated with any specific situation. 

Panic attacks are a form of severe anxiety which may limit a person's activities and which may cause a person to think they are going to faint or die of a heart attack. Panic attacks may have phobic qualities, such as a fear of flying, or driving on the freeway, or being far from home (agoraphobia). (See panic attacks & anxiety disorders for more information about these symptoms.) 

Depression is an emotional disorder which can result in fatigue, a loss of interest in life, insomnia or hypersomnia, a disturbance of appetite and an inability to work and function normally in everyday life. There are certain less common forms of severe depression which fall in the category of psychosis (see Depression.) 

Many of the above described symptoms are expression of various forms of anxiety. Both anxiety and depression are universal human feelings, which we all experience from time to time. Normally these feelings are connected with identifiable stress factors and they  usually are limited in extent and duration. When these symptoms begin to dominate and disrupt our lives they are signs of emotional distress which require professional help.

People usually respond favorable to help from a well qualified and experienced mental health professional. (See selecting a psychologist,  types of therapists and types of therapy.)