Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

GAD involves hard-to-control worry that shows up across many parts of life, such as health, family, work, or finances. The worry often feels excessive, exhausting, and difficult to switch off.

Common signs may include:

• Frequent or persistent worry
• Feeling on edge or unable to relax
• Muscle tension, headaches, or stomach upset
• Trouble sleeping because the mind will not slow down
• Fatigue or difficulty concentrating

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder involves recurring panic attacks plus ongoing worry about having another one, or changes in behavior because of that fear. Panic attacks can be frightening and can feel like a medical emergency.

Common signs may include:

• Sudden surges of intense fear
• Racing heart, shortness of breath, or chest discomfort
• Dizziness, chills, shaking, or nausea
• Feeling out of control or like something terrible is happening
• Avoiding places or situations linked to past attacks

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder involves intense fear of being judged, embarrassed, or negatively evaluated in social or performance situations. It is more than shyness and can make everyday interactions feel overwhelming.

Common signs may include:

• Strong fear of being watched or judged
• Worrying for days or weeks before an event
• Avoiding social situations
• Blushing, sweating, shaking, or nausea in social settings
• Difficulty speaking or initiating conversation

Separation Anxiety Disorder

Separation anxiety can affect both children and adults. It involves excessive fear about being away from home or from people the person feels deeply attached to.

Common signs may include:

• Strong distress around separation or anticipated separation
• Persistent worry that something bad will happen to a loved one
• Reluctance to be alone or sleep away from attachment figures
• Nightmares about separation
• Headaches, nausea, or stomachaches linked to separation

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia involves fear of situations where escape may feel difficult, embarrassing, or unavailable if panic-like symptoms happen. Over time, it can make someone feel trapped by avoidance.

Common triggers may include:

• Public transportation
• Crowds or lines
• Open or enclosed spaces
• Being outside the home alone
• Needing a “safe person” to leave home

Specific Phobia

Specific phobias are intense, persistent fears about a particular object or situation, such as flying, heights, injections, animals, blood, or enclosed spaces.

Common signs may include:

• Immediate fear response when facing the trigger
• Avoidance of the feared situation
• Knowing the fear is out of proportion but still feeling unable to stop it
• Panic-like symptoms when exposed to the trigger
• Disruption to work, school, travel, or daily life

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder involves episodes of depression and episodes of elevated, expansive, or irritable mood that may include mania or hypomania. Shifts in energy, activity, sleep, judgment, and behavior often come with these mood changes.

Mania or hypomania may include:

• Needing less sleep
• Talking unusually fast or feeling thoughts race
• Increased confidence, impulsivity, or risk-taking
• High energy, agitation, or irritability

Depression may include:

• Sadness, hopelessness, or numbness
• Loss of interest or pleasure
• Fatigue, poor concentration, or appetite changes
• Thoughts of death or suicide

Bipolar I, Bipolar II, and Cyclothymia

Bipolar I involves at least one manic episode. Bipolar II involves hypomanic episodes plus major depressive episodes, without full mania. Cyclothymia involves longer-term mood fluctuation that does not fully meet criteria for bipolar I or II.

Major Depressive Disorder

Major depression is more than feeling sad. It can affect mood, sleep, appetite, concentration, energy, and the ability to function or feel pleasure.

Common signs may include:

• Persistent sadness, emptiness, or hopelessness
• Loss of interest in usual activities
• Fatigue or slowed thinking
• Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
• Sleep or appetite changes
• Thoughts of death or suicide

Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia)

Persistent depressive disorder is a more chronic, often lower-grade depression that lasts a long time and can leave someone feeling “stuck,” worn down, or disconnected from hope.

Common signs may include:

• Low mood most days
• Low energy
• Poor self-esteem
• Hopelessness
• Sleep, appetite, or concentration problems

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)

DMDD is a childhood condition marked by chronic irritability and severe temper outbursts that are out of proportion to the situation.

It may look like:

• Frequent intense outbursts
• Angry or irritable mood most of the time
• Problems across settings like home and school

Seasonal Affective Disorder (Seasonal Depression)

Seasonal depression is a pattern in which depressive symptoms appear during part of the year — often in fall or winter — and improve during spring or summer.

Perinatal / Postpartum Depression

Perinatal depression can happen during pregnancy or after childbirth. It is more intense and longer-lasting than the “baby blues” and can affect bonding, daily functioning, and safety.

Common signs may include:

• Persistent sadness, anxiety, or numbness
• Difficulty sleeping, even when exhausted
• Feeling disconnected from the baby
• Guilt, shame, or feeling like a failure
• Intrusive or frightening thoughts

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

DID is a dissociative disorder that involves disruption in identity, memory, and continuity of experience. It was previously called multiple personality disorder, but DID is the current term.

Common experiences may include:

• Time loss or memory gaps
• Feeling unlike yourself at different times
• Finding things you do not remember buying or writing
• Depression, anxiety, self-harm, or trauma symptoms
• Feeling confused, disoriented, or “not fully present”

Depersonalization / Derealization Disorder

Depersonalization can feel like being detached from yourself; derealization can make the world feel unreal, distant, dreamlike, or distorted.

Common experiences may include:

• Feeling like an outside observer of yourself
• Feeling emotionally numb or robotic
• Distortions in time, distance, or the size of things
• Feeling disconnected from familiar people or surroundings
• Episodes that last hours, days, or longer

Other Dissociative Conditions

Other dissociative disorders can include dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, and dissociative symptoms that do not fit neatly into one single category but still cause distress or disruption.

Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia involves restriction of food intake, intense fear of weight gain, and a distorted relationship with weight, shape, or eating. People can be very medically compromised even when that is not outwardly obvious.

Common signs may include:

• Restricting food or avoiding entire categories of food
• Intense fear of weight gain
• Body checking or preoccupation with calories, food, or weight
• Rigid food rituals
• Dizziness, weakness, feeling cold, or menstrual changes

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia involves recurrent binge eating followed by behaviors meant to compensate, such as vomiting, laxative misuse, fasting, or compulsive exercise.

Common signs may include:

• Episodes of eating that feel out of control
• Secrecy around food or eating
• Purging or compensatory behaviors after eating
• Swollen cheeks, reflux, dental changes, or sore throat
• Shame, guilt, or intense distress after binges

Binge Eating Disorder

Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food with a sense of loss of control, followed by distress. Unlike bulimia, it does not include regular compensatory behaviors.

Common signs may include:

• Eating rapidly or past the point of comfort
• Eating when not physically hungry
• Eating alone due to embarrassment
• Feeling disgusted, guilty, or depressed afterward
• Repeated binge episodes over time

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)

ARFID involves limited eating or avoidance of food that is not driven by body-image concerns. It may be related to low appetite, sensory sensitivity, fear of choking or vomiting, or difficulty tolerating foods.

Common signs may include:

• Very limited range of foods
• Lack of interest in eating
• Fear linked to choking, gagging, or vomiting
• Weight loss, poor growth, or nutritional problems
• Dizziness, fatigue, or medical instability

Pica

Pica involves repeatedly eating nonfood substances, such as paper, chalk, soil, hair, or metal, in a way that is developmentally inappropriate and not culturally expected.

Gender Dysphoria

Gender dysphoria refers to distress that can occur when a person’s experienced or expressed gender does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. Not all transgender or gender-diverse people experience gender dysphoria, and being transgender is not itself a mental disorder.

This distress may involve:

• Strong discomfort with one’s body or certain sex characteristics
• Strong desire to be recognized or treated as one’s experienced gender
• Distress related to social role, misgendering, or incongruence
• Significant emotional pain or impairment in daily life

Intellectual Disability

Intellectual disability involves differences in intellectual functioning and adaptive skills, such as communication, problem solving, social judgment, and daily living tasks.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Autism is a developmental disability that affects social communication, interaction, and patterns of behavior or interests. Sensory differences are also common.

Common traits may include:

• Differences in social communication or back-and-forth conversation
• Repetitive movements, speech, or routines
• Strong or highly focused interests
• Difficulty with transitions or unexpected change
• Sensory sensitivity or sensory-seeking patterns

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

ADHD is a developmental disorder involving patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, or a mix of these that interfere with functioning.

Common signs may include:

• Difficulty focusing, organizing, or finishing tasks
• Forgetfulness or losing important items
• Restlessness, fidgeting, or talking a lot
• Interrupting or acting without thinking
• Trouble waiting, slowing down, or staying with one activity

Specific Learning Disorder

A learning disorder affects one or more areas such as reading, writing, or math. The difficulty is persistent and out of step with what would usually be expected given opportunity and instruction.

Tourette’s Disorder

Tourette’s involves motor tics, vocal tics, or both. Tics are sudden, involuntary movements or sounds that may vary over time.

Examples may include:

• Eye blinking, shoulder shrugging, or head jerking
• Sniffing, throat clearing, or grunting
• More complex combinations of sounds or movements

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

OCD involves unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images, or urges (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors or mental rituals (compulsions) done to reduce anxiety or distress.

Common examples may include:

• Fear of contamination, harm, mistakes, or taboo thoughts
• Checking, washing, counting, repeating, or arranging
• Feeling unable to stop the ritual even when it makes little sense
• Spending significant time each day on obsessions or compulsions

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder involves intense preoccupation with one or more perceived flaws in appearance, often leading to distress, avoidance, or repetitive checking behaviors.

Hoarding Disorder

Hoarding involves persistent difficulty discarding possessions regardless of value, along with distress about getting rid of things and clutter that disrupts living spaces.

Related Conditions

Other related conditions can include trichotillomania (hair pulling) and excoriation disorder (skin picking), which also involve repetitive, hard-to-control behaviors.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

BPD is often associated with intense emotions, fear of abandonment, relationship instability, and a shifting or uncertain sense of self. People with BPD are often highly sensitive to rejection, separation, or emotional disconnection, and may struggle to regulate overwhelming feelings.

Common experiences may include:

• Strong emotional reactions to perceived rejection or abandonment
• Rapid shifts in closeness, trust, or conflict in relationships
• An unstable sense of identity or self-worth
• Impulsivity or self-harming behavior during periods of intense distress
• Emptiness, anger, or dissociation under stress

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissistic personality disorder often involves a strong need for admiration, difficulty tolerating criticism, and patterns of relating that revolve around status, recognition, or self-protection. Beneath the surface, there may also be vulnerability, shame, or a fragile sense of self that is defended against very strongly.

Common patterns may include:

• Grandiosity or an inflated sense of importance
• Strong need for praise, recognition, or validation
• Difficulty empathizing with other people’s needs or perspectives
• Intense reactions to criticism, rejection, or perceived disrespect
• Relationship difficulties linked to entitlement or self-focus

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Avoidant personality disorder involves deep sensitivity to criticism, rejection, or shame. People with this pattern often want connection but pull back because they expect embarrassment, disapproval, or emotional pain.

Common experiences may include:

• Avoiding social, relational, or work situations due to fear of judgment
• Feeling inadequate, inferior, or not good enough
• Reluctance to get close unless acceptance feels very certain
• Preoccupation with rejection in social situations
• Strong inhibition in unfamiliar settings

Dependent Personality Disorder

Dependent personality disorder involves a strong need for reassurance, care, or guidance from others. Decisions, disagreement, and being alone may feel overwhelming, especially when the person fears losing an important relationship.

Common experiences may include:

• Difficulty making everyday decisions without reassurance
• Letting others take the lead in major life areas
• Fear of being left, unsupported, or unable to cope alone
• Difficulty expressing disagreement because of fear of losing support
• Feeling helpless or devastated when relationships end

Paranoid Personality Disorder

Paranoid personality disorder involves a persistent pattern of distrust and suspicion. People may assume that others are deceptive, disloyal, or likely to cause harm, even when there is little clear evidence for that conclusion.

Common experiences may include:

• Difficulty trusting others
• Reading threat or insult into neutral events
• Reluctance to confide in others
• Holding grudges or staying alert for betrayal
• Feeling guarded, defensive, or chronically wary

Schizoid Personality Disorder

Schizoid personality disorder is marked by distance from close relationships and a limited outward expression of emotion. People may prefer solitude, feel little interest in intimacy, or seem emotionally reserved to others.

Common patterns may include:

• Little desire for close relationships
• Preference for solitary activities
• Limited emotional expression in social settings
• Few close confidants
• Appearing indifferent to praise or criticism

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Schizotypal personality disorder can involve unusual beliefs, odd perceptions, eccentric behavior, and significant discomfort with closeness. People may feel socially anxious, mistrustful, or different from others in ways that affect daily life.

Common experiences may include:

• Odd beliefs, magical thinking, or unusual perceptions
• Speech or behavior that others experience as unusual or eccentric
• Suspiciousness or paranoid ideas
• Strong social discomfort that does not ease with familiarity
• Difficulty forming close relationships

Histrionic Personality Disorder

Histrionic personality disorder often involves intense emotional expression, a strong desire to be noticed, and discomfort when attention or reassurance feels absent. Relationships may feel close or emotionally charged very quickly.

Common patterns may include:

• Feeling uncomfortable when not the center of attention
• Strong, rapidly shifting emotional expression
• Using appearance, charm, or dramatic expression to gain connection
• Suggestibility or being strongly influenced by others
• Experiencing relationships as closer or more intense than they are

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

OCPD involves rigidity, perfectionism, and a strong need for control, order, or correctness. These patterns can make it hard to delegate, relax, or adapt when things do not go according to plan.

Common patterns may include:

• Perfectionism that gets in the way of finishing tasks
• Preoccupation with rules, order, lists, or structure
• Difficulty delegating unless others do things “the right way”
• Rigidity around standards, morals, or expectations
• Tension between productivity and flexibility or rest

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Antisocial personality disorder involves a long-standing pattern of violating other people’s rights, ignoring social rules, and showing limited remorse after harm. It can include deceit, impulsivity, aggression, and a disregard for safety or consequences.

Common patterns may include:

• Repeated dishonesty or manipulation
• Impulsivity or poor regard for safety
• Aggression, irritability, or intimidation
• Chronic irresponsibility
• Limited remorse after harming others

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia can involve psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking, along with reduced emotional expression, reduced motivation, and cognitive changes.

Symptoms are often grouped into:

• Psychotic symptoms: hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking
• Negative symptoms: reduced motivation, less speech, reduced expression
• Cognitive symptoms: problems with attention, memory, or executive functioning

Schizoaffective Disorder

Schizoaffective disorder involves both psychotic symptoms and significant mood symptoms, such as depression or mania.

Schizophreniform Disorder

Schizophreniform disorder includes schizophrenia-like symptoms that last longer than one month but less than six months.

Delusional Disorder

Delusional disorder involves one or more fixed delusions for at least a month, without the broader range of psychotic symptoms seen in schizophrenia.

Common themes may include:

• Persecutory beliefs
• Jealousy
• Erotomanic beliefs
• Grandiose beliefs
• Somatic delusions

Insomnia

Insomnia involves ongoing difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or getting restorative sleep despite having the chance to sleep.

It may include:

• Trouble falling asleep
• Frequent waking
• Waking too early
• Daytime fatigue or difficulty functioning

Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy is a neurological condition that disrupts the sleep-wake cycle and can cause overwhelming daytime sleepiness or sudden episodes of sleep.

Parasomnias

Parasomnias involve unusual behaviors or experiences during sleep, such as talking, moving, acting out dreams, or other events that occur while asleep or partially awake.

Somatic Symptom Disorder

Somatic symptom disorder involves significant distress related to physical symptoms and the effect they have on daily life, whether or not a clear medical explanation is found.

Illness Anxiety Disorder

Illness anxiety disorder involves excessive fear of having or developing a serious illness, often despite reassurance or normal medical findings.

Common signs may include:

• Frequent body checking
• Repeated reassurance seeking or repeated doctor visits
• Health-related internet searching
• Persistent fear that minor symptoms signal something severe

Conversion Disorder / Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder

This condition involves neurological-like symptoms — such as weakness, seizures, sensory changes, or loss of voice — that are real and distressing but are not explained by a neurological disease pattern alone.

Symptoms may include:

• Weakness or paralysis
• Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures
• Loss of voice
• Blindness, deafness, or sensory changes
• Difficulty coordinating movement

Acute Stress Disorder

Acute stress disorder can develop soon after a traumatic event and may include dissociation, re-experiencing, avoidance, anxiety, or a sense of unreality.

Reactive Attachment Disorder

Reactive attachment disorder can develop in very young children when consistent emotional care, safety, and attachment are severely disrupted.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD can develop after trauma and often includes four broad clusters: intrusive re-experiencing, avoidance, changes in mood and beliefs, and heightened arousal or reactivity.

Common signs may include:

• Intrusive memories, nightmares, or flashbacks
• Avoiding reminders of the trauma
• Shame, guilt, fear, or feeling detached from others
• Hypervigilance, irritability, sleep problems, or startle response

Complex PTSD (CPTSD)

Complex PTSD is recognized in ICD-11, though it is not a separate diagnosis in DSM-5-TR. It often develops after prolonged, repeated, or inescapable trauma, especially relational trauma.

In addition to PTSD symptoms, it may involve:

• Difficulty regulating emotions
• Persistent shame, worthlessness, or negative self-beliefs
• Problems with trust, intimacy, or relational safety
• Chronic emptiness, hopelessness, or self-harm risk

Adjustment Disorder

Adjustment disorder involves emotional or behavioral symptoms that develop in response to a stressful life event or major life change and feel stronger than expected for the situation.

It may show up as:

• Anxiety
• Low mood
• Behavioral disruption
• Difficulty functioning after a major stressor