Less Common Types of Mental Disorders

Mental health illness is a complicated medical condition. In some cases, it can be tough to tell that the person has a mental disorder. Most people are used to the typical symptoms like anxiety disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, addiction or impulse control disorders, personality disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and post-traumatic disorders. However, we have some less common forms of mental illnesses that can develop further if you fail to address them in good time. These include but are not limited to stress response syndrome, dissociative disorders, factitious disorders, gender and sexual disorders, and somatic symptom disorders. All these conditions require immediate therapy to avoid worsening the situations.

Stress Response Syndromes

In the past, this condition was known as adjustment disorders. Stress response takes place when an individual develops behavioural or emotional symptoms in response to a stressful situation or event. These stressors may comprise of natural disasters like a tornado or an earthquake; crises or events like the diagnosis of a major sickness or involvement in a car accident; or interpersonal problems including the loss of a job, death of a close family member, or developing a problem from substance abuse. Stress response syndromes typically arise within the first three months of the situation or event and will end within six months after the stressor is eliminated or stops. It is good to have this information in advance to help the patient avoid this kind of syndrome.

Dissociative Disorders

Individuals who have these disorders suffer from severe changes in memories or disturbances, identity, consciousness, and a general awareness of their environment and themselves. Most of these disorders are linked to overwhelming stress that may be coming from traumatic events, disasters, accidents that the patient may experience or witness. The dissociative identity disorder was formerly referred to as the 'split personality' or multiple personality disorder. Depersonalization is one of the most common types of dissociative disorders.

Factitious Disorders

This condition will see the individual creating or complaining of emotional and/or physical symptoms intentionally and knowingly so that it can present him as a person who is in need of help or give him the role of a patient.

Gender and Sexual Disorders

These comprises of disorders that affect the person’s sexual behaviour, performance, and desire. For example, paraphilias, gender identity disorder, and sexual dysfunction all form gender and sexual disorders.

Somatic Symptom Disorders

Persons who are suffering from somatic symptom disorders will experience physical symptoms of pain or an illness with a disproportionate and an excessive level of distress. It does not matter whether the medical doctor can identify the course of these symptoms or not. The other names for somatic symptom disorders are the somatoform disorder or psychosomatic disorder.

Tic Disorders

A person who has the tic disorder will display non-purposeful body movements or make sounds that are sudden, quick, repeated, and/or uncontrollable. The sounds that a person makes involuntarily are referred to as vocal tics. An ideal example of the tic disorder is the Tourette’s’ syndrome.

The other ailments that medical experts classify under mental illnesses are the different forms of dementia and sleep-related problems like Alzheimer’s disease. The reason is that most of these medical complications deal with the brain.