Table : Table 14.1 Main DSM-5 Categories of Mental Disorders
  • Neurodevelopmental Disorders: These are conditions that begin early in development and cause significant impairments in functioning, such as intellectual disability (formerly called “mental retardation”), autism spectrum disorder, and attention-deficient/hyperactivity disorder.
  • Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders: This is a group of disorders characterized by major disturbances in perception, thought, language, emotion, and behavior.
  • Bipolar and Related Disorders: These disorders include major fluctuations in mood—from mania to depression—and can include psychotic experiences, which is why they are placed between the psychotic and depressive disorders in DSM-5.
  • Depressive Disorders: These are conditions characterized by extreme and persistent periods of depressive mood.
  • Anxiety Disorders: These are disorders characterized by excessive fear and anxiety that are extreme enough to impair a person’s functioning, such as panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and specific phobia.
  • Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders: These are conditions characterized by the presence of obsessive thinking followed by compulsive behavior in response to that thinking.
  • Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders: These are disorders that develop in response to a traumatic event, such as posttraumatic stress disorder.
  • Dissociative Disorders: These are conditions characterized by disruptions or discontinuity in consciousness, memory, or identity, such as dissociative identity disorders (formerly called “multiple personality disorder”).
  • Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders: These are conditions in which a person experiences bodily symptoms (e.g., pain or fatigue) associated with significant distress or impairment.
  • Feeding and Eating Disorders: These are problems with eating that impair health or functioning, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.
  • Elimination Disorders: These involve inappropriate elimination of urine or feces (e.g., bed-wetting).
  • Sleep-Wake Disorders: These are problems with the sleep-wake cycle, such as insomnia, narcolepsy, and sleep apnea.
  • Sexual Dysfunctions: These are problems related to unsatisfactory sexual activity, such as erectile disorder and premature ejaculation.
  • Gender Dysphoria: This is a single disorder characterized by incongruence between a person’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.
  • Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders: These are conditions involving problems controlling emotions and behaviors, such as conduct disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, and kleptomania.
  • Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders: This collection of disorders involves persistent use of substances or some other behavior (e.g., gambling) despite the fact that such behavior leads to significant problems.
  • Neurocognitive Disorders: These are disorders of thinking caused by conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease or traumatic brain injury.
  • Personality Disorders: These are enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that lead to significant life problems.
  • Paraphilic Disorders: These are conditions characterized by inappropriate sexual activity, such as pedophilic disorder.
  • Other Mental Disorders: This is a residual category for conditions that do not fit into one of the above categories but that are associated with significant distress or impairment, such as unspecified mental disorder due to a medical condition.
  • Medication-Induced Movement Disorders and Other Adverse Effects of Medication: These are problems with physical movement (e.g., tremors, rigidity) that are caused by medication.
  • Other Conditions that May be the Focus of Clinical Attention: These include problems related to abuse, neglect, relationship, or other problems.
  • Source: Information from American Psychiatric Association, 2013.