Mental Emotional Disorders
Anxiety Disorders
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- What is it?
- Pervasive pattern of preoccupation
- Effects orderliness, perfectionism, mental, interpersonal control
- Inhibits flexibility, openness, efficiency
- OCD is time consuming, interferes with routine/academic functioning
- Usually emerges in early childhood
- Thoughts of death or suicide
- Obsessions:
- Recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, images
Thoughts are intrusive, inappropriate
Thoughts cause extreme anxiety, distress
Compulsions:
Repetitive behaviors (hand washing, ordering, checking)
Repetitive mental acts (praying, counting, repeating words silently)
Behaviors and thoughts are internally driven, uncontrollable
- What does it look like?
Panic Disorder
- What is it?
- Unexpected, repeated episodes or intense fear
- Physical symptoms that mimic life-threatening medical conditions
- What does it look like?
- Heart palpitations/pounding heart
- Sweating
- Trembling, shaking
- Shortness of breath, chest pain
- Nausea, dizziness
- Fear of dying, losing control or going crazy
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- What is it?
- Feeling of worry or fear
- Restlessness
- Fatigue
- Irritability
- Difficulty concentrating
- Disturbed sleep and/or muscle tension
- Spontaneous occurrence, no apparent reason, lasts for days
- What does it look like?
- Refusing to speak in front of the class/write answers on the board
- Anxious when working in groups
- Fearful about participating in course related field trips
- Anxiety because of unknown environments
- Nervous behavior associated with course location or instructor changes
- Unusual reaction to poor test grade or homework assignment
Also see Academic Tips for mental emotional disorders