Common clinical pictures | Mental illness

Common clinical pictures

In anticipation of a detailed description in the respective subchapter, a brief overview of common mental disorders and their symptoms follows: Depressive disorders: Depressive clinical pictures express themselves in a distinctly depressed mood and lack of drive in the patient, which is not appropriate to the circumstances. Patients feel sad, uncomfortable and unable to do anything about this situation. Clinically, a distinction is made between mixed pictures with manic or delusional disorders (see depression, pregnancy depression): In contrast to depressive disorders, manic disorders manifest themselves in an unadapted, carefree mood of the patient.

The affected persons show an aimless zest for action, are filled with nonsensical but positively perceived ideas and often stand out through unrestrained and self-damaging behavior such as party excesses or spending money. Mixed images in which manic phases alternate with depressive phases are relatively common, and thought processes and contents can also take on a delusional character in the context of a mania (see Mania) Schizophrenic clinical pictures: Symptoms of schizophrenic disorders include ego disorders and delusional misunderstanding of reality, hallucinations, sleep and thinking disorders or perceived emptiness. The schizophrenic disorders are subdivided according to cause or predominant symptom (see Schizophrenia), addictions and drug addiction: Drug abuse is associated with mental disorders in two ways: on the one hand, a trigger function for mental illness has been proven for a number of substances, and on the other hand, it has been proven that some mental disorders lead to an increased “susceptibility” to drug abuse.

Furthermore, “non-material” addictions are also counted among the addictions, such as addiction to buying, gambling or sex (see Addiction). Anxiety and compulsive disorders: Anxiety disorders include phobias (object- or situation-related fears, e.g. spider phobia, claustrophobia), hypochondria (exaggerated fear of illness) or panic attacks are also included in this spectrum. Obsessive-compulsive disorders are often based on fears of a concrete or abstract danger, which those affected try to avoid by compulsively performing rituals (e.g. control, cleaning or counting compulsions (see Fear and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)