Conditions
Conditions are the named diagnoses clinicians work from. They group symptoms into recognized patterns with defined criteria, the kind you'll find in the DSM-5-TR. Knowing the condition behind a word helps you understand what's being treated and why, and it explains why two people with similar symptoms can end up with different diagnoses and different care. Each entry here covers what the condition actually is, how it tends to show up, what it isn't, and where to turn next. A diagnosis is a starting point for treatment, not a label that defines a person.
55 terms
Download the Conditions cheat sheet (PDF)All conditions terms
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Acute Stress Disorder
Acute stress disorder is an intense stress reaction in the first days and weeks after a traumatic event. It looks a lot like PTSD but happens sooner and is shorter, and for many people it eases with time and support.
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ADHD
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition marked by ongoing patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that get in the way of daily life. It often starts in childhood and frequently continues into adulthood.
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Adjustment Disorder
Adjustment disorder is a strong emotional reaction to a stressful life change that goes beyond what's expected and gets in the way of daily life. It usually eases once a person adapts or the stressor passes.
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Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder marked by intense fear of situations where escape might be hard or help unavailable if panic-like symptoms strike. People often start avoiding those situations, which can shrink daily life over time.
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Alcohol use disorder
Alcohol use disorder is a medical condition in which a person keeps drinking despite harm to their health, relationships, or daily life. It ranges from mild to severe and is treatable.
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Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is a serious eating disorder marked by an intense fear of weight gain and a distorted view of one's body, leading to restriction that harms physical and mental health. It's treatable, and early help matters.
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Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder is a personality pattern marked by ongoing disregard for the rights of others and for social rules. It often includes impulsivity, deceit, and trouble feeling guilt or considering consequences.
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Anxiety
Anxiety is the body and mind's response to perceived threat or uncertainty. It becomes a clinical condition when it's persistent, out of proportion to the situation, and gets in the way of daily life.
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Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental difference in how a person communicates, relates to others, and processes the world. It's present from early childhood and shows up in a wide range of ways from one person to the next.
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Avoidant personality disorder
Avoidant personality disorder is a personality pattern built around deep feelings of inadequacy and a strong fear of criticism or rejection. People with it often want closeness but hold back from relationships to avoid being hurt.
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Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder is an eating disorder where someone limits how much or what kinds of food they eat, but not out of concern about weight or body shape.
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Binge Eating Disorder
Binge eating disorder involves recurring episodes of eating large amounts of food with a sense of loss of control and real distress afterward. It's the most common eating disorder, and it's treatable.
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Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder involving episodes of depression alternating with periods of mania or hypomania, which are times of unusually high or irritable mood and energy. Telling it apart from ordinary depression matters because the treatments differ.
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Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Body dysmorphic disorder is a condition where a person becomes intensely preoccupied with a perceived flaw in their appearance that others barely notice or don't see at all. The distress is real and it's treatable.
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Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a condition marked by intense emotions, unstable relationships, impulsive behavior, and a shifting sense of self. It is treatable, and dialectical behavior therapy is a well-studied approach.
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Bulimia Nervosa
Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder involving cycles of eating that feels out of control followed by attempts to undo it. It often carries deep shame, and it's treatable.
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Complex PTSD
Complex PTSD describes the lasting effects of repeated or prolonged trauma, often beginning in relationships a person couldn't escape. It shares features with PTSD but adds deeper struggles with emotions, self-worth, and connection.
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Cyclothymia
Cyclothymia is a milder, long-lasting mood condition with many ups and downs that don't reach the full intensity of mania or major depression. The shifts are real and persistent, just less severe than in bipolar disorder.
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Delirium
Delirium is a sudden, fluctuating change in attention and awareness, usually caused by a medical problem. It comes on fast and tends to come and go through the day.
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Delusional Disorder
Delusional disorder is a psychotic condition where someone holds one or more fixed false beliefs for at least a month, while the rest of their functioning stays relatively intact. It's a DSM-5-TR diagnosis.
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Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder
Depersonalization-derealization disorder is a dissociative condition where someone persistently feels detached from themselves or that the world around them isn't real. It's a DSM-5-TR diagnosis.
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Depression
Depression is a persistent state of low mood, loss of interest, and decreased function that goes beyond ordinary sadness. It's a recognized medical condition, not a character weakness.
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Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder is a childhood condition marked by severe, frequent temper outbursts and a persistently irritable or angry mood between them. It was added to the DSM in 2013.
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Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a condition in which a person experiences two or more distinct identity states, along with gaps in memory. It's strongly linked to severe, repeated trauma, often early in life.
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Gambling disorder
Gambling disorder is a condition in which a person keeps gambling despite serious harm to their finances, relationships, or well-being. It's recognized as a behavioral addiction and is treatable.
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Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
Generalized anxiety disorder is persistent, excessive worry across many areas of life that's hard to control and lasts most days for at least six months. It's the worry itself that becomes the problem, not any single situation.
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Histrionic Personality Disorder
Histrionic personality disorder is a long-standing pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking. People with it often feel uncomfortable when they aren't the center of attention.
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Hoarding disorder
Hoarding disorder is an ongoing difficulty parting with possessions, no matter their actual value, because getting rid of them feels too distressing. Over time the clutter can fill living spaces and make them hard to use.
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Illness Anxiety Disorder
Illness anxiety disorder is a persistent preoccupation with having or developing a serious illness, even when little or no physical symptoms are present. It was formerly known as hypochondria.
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Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Intermittent explosive disorder involves repeated, sudden outbursts of aggression or anger that are out of proportion to what set them off. It's a recognized DSM-5-TR diagnosis.
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Major depressive disorder (MDD)
Major depressive disorder is the formal diagnosis behind clinical depression, defined by at least two weeks of low mood or loss of interest along with other symptoms. It's a medical condition, not a passing mood or a personal failing.
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Narcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality pattern marked by a strong need for admiration, a fragile sense of self-worth, and difficulty tuning in to other people's feelings. The confidence on the surface often sits over deeper insecurity.
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Narcolepsy
Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological condition that affects the brain's control of sleep and wakefulness. It causes severe daytime sleepiness and sudden urges to sleep.
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Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
OCD is a condition involving obsessions, which are unwanted intrusive thoughts, and compulsions, which are repetitive rituals done to relieve the distress. The rituals bring only short-lived relief, which keeps the cycle going.
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OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder)
OCPD is a personality pattern built around perfectionism, control, and rigid rules. People with it often hold very high standards for themselves and others, sometimes at the cost of flexibility and relationships.
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Opioid use disorder
Opioid use disorder is a medical condition in which a person keeps using opioids despite harm to their health, relationships, or daily life. It ranges from mild to severe and is treatable.
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Oppositional defiant disorder
Oppositional defiant disorder is a childhood condition marked by an ongoing pattern of angry mood, argumentative or defiant behavior, and vindictiveness that goes beyond typical ups and downs.
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Panic disorder
Panic disorder is a condition involving recurrent, unexpected panic attacks along with persistent worry about having more or changes in behavior to avoid them. The fear of the next attack becomes its own problem.
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Persistent depressive disorder
Persistent depressive disorder is a chronic form of depression in which low mood lasts most of the day, more days than not, for at least two years. The symptoms tend to be lower in intensity than major depression but longer lasting.
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Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
PTSD is a condition that can develop after a traumatic event, marked by intrusive memories, avoidance, negative shifts in mood and thinking, and a body stuck on high alert. It reflects how trauma can change the way the brain processes danger.
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Postpartum depression
Postpartum depression is a form of depression that can occur during pregnancy or in the weeks and months after giving birth. It is more intense and longer lasting than the brief mood dip often called the baby blues.
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Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a severe form of premenstrual difficulty that brings intense mood and physical symptoms in the days before a period. It's a recognized medical condition, not just bad PMS, and it's treatable.
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Prolonged Grief Disorder
Prolonged grief disorder is intense, persistent grief that lasts well beyond what's expected and keeps interfering with daily life. It became a formal DSM-5-TR diagnosis in 2022.
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Schizoaffective disorder
Schizoaffective disorder is a condition that combines features of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations or delusions, with major mood episodes of depression or mania. It sits between two diagnoses and shares features of both.
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Schizoid Personality Disorder
Schizoid personality disorder is a lasting pattern of detachment from relationships and limited emotional expression, where someone genuinely prefers being alone. It's a DSM-5-TR diagnosis.
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Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a serious mental health condition that affects how a person thinks, perceives reality, and functions. It can involve hallucinations, delusions, and changes in motivation and emotion, and it responds best to early, ongoing treatment.
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Schizotypal Personality Disorder
Schizotypal personality disorder is a lasting pattern of social discomfort, odd beliefs or perceptions, and eccentric behavior. It's a DSM-5-TR diagnosis in the schizophrenia spectrum group.
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Seasonal affective disorder
Seasonal affective disorder is a form of depression that follows a seasonal pattern, most often arriving in the late fall and winter and easing in spring. It is more than a passing case of the winter blues.
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Separation anxiety disorder
Separation anxiety disorder is intense, ongoing fear about being apart from the people a person is most attached to. It goes beyond what fits the person's age and can interfere with daily life.
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Social anxiety disorder
Social anxiety disorder is an intense, persistent fear of being judged, embarrassed, or scrutinized in social or performance situations. It's more than shyness, and the fear is strong enough to disrupt everyday life.
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Somatic symptom disorder
Somatic symptom disorder is when a person has real physical symptoms along with excessive worry, thoughts, or behaviors about them. The distress and focus on the symptoms are out of proportion and disrupt daily life.
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Specific phobia
A specific phobia is an intense, persistent fear of a particular object or situation that is out of proportion to the actual danger. People often go to great lengths to avoid the thing they fear.
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Substance use disorder
Substance use disorder is a condition in which a person keeps using alcohol or other drugs despite the harm it causes. It ranges from mild to severe and is treatable.
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Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition that causes tics, which are sudden, repeated movements or sounds a person makes without meaning to. It often begins in childhood.
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Trichotillomania
Trichotillomania is a condition where a person repeatedly pulls out their own hair, leading to noticeable hair loss. The pulling can feel hard to resist and is often followed by relief, then distress.
Explore another category
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Symptoms
41 termsWhat people feel, notice, or experience that brings them to care.
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Medications
72 termsDrug classes and specific medications used in psychiatric care.
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Therapy Terms
24 termsThe language of psychotherapy, techniques, and modalities.
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Psychiatry Terms
30 termsClinical terms used in psychiatric practice.
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Psychology Terms
28 termsConcepts from psychological science.
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Brain and Body Terms
23 termsNeuroscience, physiology, and the body's role in mental health.
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Everyday Language
29 termsWords people use casually that have specific clinical meanings.
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Research Terms
12 termsWords you'll see in psychiatric research and evidence reviews.
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