SLEEP DISORDERS
Primary Sleep disorders are divided into two subcategories: Dyssomnias are those disorders relating to the amount, quality, and timing of sleep. Parasomnias relate to abnormal behaviour or physiological events that occur during the process of sleep or sleep-wake transitions. We use the term primary to differentiate these sleep disorders from other sleep disorders that are caused by outside factors, such as another mental disorder, medical disorder, or substance use. Sleep difficulties might not appear as mental health issues (or disorders). However, it is part of the holistic approach of CBT psychological intervention to address sleep problems and to teach relevant skills. We know that the lack of restorative sleep can aggravate and even cause other difficulties (e.g. depression, anxiety, pain) and therefore we will always include sleep improving strategies into our treatment package.
- Primary Insomnia
- Primary Hypersomnia
- Sleep Apnea
- Narcolepsy
- Nightmare Disorder
- Sleep Terror Disorder
- Sleepwalking Disorder
IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDERS
Disorders in this category include the failure or extreme difficulty in controlling impulses, despite the negative consequences. This includes the failure to stop gambling, even if you realize that losing would result in significant negative consequences. This failure to control impulses also refers to the impulse to engage in violent behaviour (e.g., road rage), sexual behaviour, fire starting, stealing, and self-abusive behaviours.
- Intermittent Explosive Disorder
- Kleptomania
- Pyromania
- Pathological Gambling
- Trichotillomania
PERSONALITY DISORDERS
Personality Disorders are mental health presentations that share several unique qualities. They contain symptoms that are more or less enduring and play a major role in most, if not all, aspects of the person’s life. While many disorders vacillate in terms of symptom presence and intensity, personality disorders typically remain relatively constant and require more intense treatment approaches. Most people have a combination of different personality styles and this also applies to the definition of personality disorders. It is difficult to pinpoint the threshold when a style becomes a disorder and the defining criterion is again the degree of interference with social, occupational and other areas of life. The diagnosis of personality disorders is usually postponed or avoided as it is often not necessarily helpful to attach a label to a ‘personal style’. Diagnosis will only be made when it is helpful for intervention purposes.
To be able to provide a diagnosis of a disorder in this category, a Psychologist will look for the following criteria:
Symptoms have been present for an extended period of time, are inflexible and pervasive, and are not a result of alcohol or drugs or another psychiatric disorder.
The history of symptoms can be traced back to adolescence or at least early adulthood.
The symptoms have caused and continue to cause significant distress or negative consequences in different aspects of the person’s life.
Symptoms are seen in at least two of the following areas:
Thoughts (ways of looking at the world, thinking about self or others, and interacting)
Emotions (appropriateness, intensity, and range of emotional functioning)
Interpersonal Functioning (relationships and interpersonal skills)
Impulse Control
- Paranoid Personality Disorder
- Schizoid Personality Disorder
- Schizotypal Personality Disorder
- Antisocial Personality Disorder
- Sociopathic Personality Disorder or Psychopathy.
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Histrionic Personality Disorder
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder
- Avoidant Personality Disorder
- Dependent Personality Disorder
- Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS
The major symptom of these disorders is psychosis, or delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are false beliefs that significantly hinder a person’s ability to function. For example, believing that people are trying to hurt you when there is no evidence of this, or believing that you are somebody else, such as Jesus Christ or Cleopatra. Hallucinations are false perceptions. They can be visual (seeing things that aren’t there), auditory (hearing), olfactory (smelling), tactile (feeling sensations on your skin that aren’t really there, such as the feeling of bugs crawling on you), or taste. This is an other area within the mental health presentations where the insight into one’s own difficulties might be compromised. This therefore necessitates more intense support from friends, family and professional support people. Despite the frequent initial resistance the person feels more at ease and safer when they receive the proper care and support. These are specialised areas of assessment and treatment. Information on these disorders is available and referrals can be organised to a specialist team of professionals.
SEXUAL AND GENDER IDENTITY DISORDERS
As mentioned previously, it will be most often the individual’s own perception whether the threshold for ‘impairment’ is reached. Thus, in most of the following areas a diagnosis will only be made together with the person seeking support and wanting to learn new skills and strategies. In addition, it might be useful or necessary to involve significant others from the person’s life into the treatment. The primary characteristic in this category is the impairment in normal sexual functioning. This can refer to an inability to perform or reach an orgasm, painful sexual intercourse, a strong repulsion of sexual activity, or an exaggerated sexual response cycle or sexual interest. A medical cause must be ruled out prior to making any sexual dysfunction diagnosis and the symptoms must be hindering the person’s everyday functioning.
Due to the widely varied sexual response in individuals, these presentations must be judged by a clinician and the assistance seeking client together to be significant, taking into account the person’s age and situation. The condition has to be persistent or occur frequently and cause significant distress. Is not a direct effect of substance use, another disorder or physical diagnosis.