Remember: You can’t control what happens to you. The only thing you can control is how you respond. This sounds like sensible advice, but what happens if you truly can’t control how you respond to difficult experiences or stressful situations? If your reaction only causes additional distress, you may have one of the 6 types of adjustment disorders.
What is an Adjustment Disorder?
An adjustment disorder is a mental health condition that is characterized by excessive emotional and behavioral reactions in response to one or more specific, identifiable stressors.
Examples of stressors that can cause these maladaptive responses include:
- Job loss
- Being passed over for a promotion
- The end of a relationship
- Conflicts with loved ones
- Moving away from home
- Financial problems
- Serious illnesses
- Tornadoes, floods, or other natural disasters
While we usually think of stressors as obviously difficult experiences such as the ones listed above, this category can also include experiences that are typically viewed as reasons to celebrate, such as:
- Getting married
- Starting a new job
- Buying a house
- Becoming a parent
- Retiring
To be clear, having a strong emotional reaction to these or other types of stressors is not evidence of a mental illness. To meet the criteria for a diagnosis of an adjustment disorder, a person’s reactions must:
- Be disproportionate to the significance of the stressor
- Occur within three months of the precipitating event or events
- Undermine their ability to function at work, in school, at home, or in other important areas of life
- Subside within six months once the stressor has ended
People who have adjustment disorders typically begin to exhibit symptoms during childhood or adolescence. They may continue to struggle with this condition into adulthood, especially if they don’t receive proper treatment during their youth.
What Are the 6 Types of Adjustment Disorders in the DSM-5?
The descriptors “excessive” and “disproportionate” can apply to a wide range of emotions and behaviors. To more accurately describe which types of symptoms a person with an adjustment disorder has been experiencing, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes six specifiers for this condition.
In a sense, these specifiers create six different types of adjustment disorders:
1. With Depressed Mood
Someone who has an adjustment disorder with depressed mood may respond to a stressful experience with:
- Persistent sadness
- Frequent crying
- Disrupted appetite and sleep patterns
- Overwhelming sense of hopelessness
2. With Anxiety
An adjustment disorder with anxiety will likely include symptoms such as:
- Extreme worry or fear
- Unrelenting nervousness
- Restlessness or jitteriness
- Separation-related concerns
3. With Mixed Anxiety and Depressed Mood
As the name suggests, adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood may include several or all of the symptoms from the previous two specifiers.
4. With Disturbance of Conduct
A person with adjustment disorder with disturbance of conduct may channel their psychological pain into a variety of harmful or self-defeating behaviors, such as:
- Driving recklessly
- Binge eating
- Vandalizing or destroying property
- Bullying or harassing other people
- Becoming physically aggressive
- Abusing animals
- Abusing alcohol or other drugs
5. With Mixed Disturbance of Emotions and Conduct
This type of adjustment disorder involves symptoms of both depression and anxiety, along with the problematic behaviors from the previous specifier.
6. Unspecified
A diagnosis of unspecified adjustment disorder would be warranted if the person’s reaction to stressors does not align with the criteria for any of the other five types.
What Causes An Adjustment Disorder?
There is no single cause of adjustment disorders. Instead, a person’s risk can be affected by influences such as:
- Certain genetic variants or inherited traits
- Growing up in a disadvantaged environment
- Being exposed to overwhelming and/or ongoing stress
- Experiencing major life changes
How Are Adjustment Disorders Treated?
Given the great variety of symptoms that someone with an adjustment disorder could experience, effective treatment can look very different from one person to another.
Examples of the many factors that can affect the design of a person’s customized treatment plan include:
- Their age, gender, and developmental level
- The type of adjustment disorder they have
- The nature and severity of their symptoms
- How their life has been impacted by adjustment disorders
- If they have any co-occurring mental or behavioral health concerns
After evaluating these and other relevant pieces of information, a provider may recommend inpatient treatment, outpatient care, or both. If a provider recommends both, this means that the person would begin at the inpatient level, then step down to an outpatient program for continued support.
- The benefits of inpatient treatment for adjustment disorders include full days of therapeutic programming, access to round-the-clock care, and the opportunity to briefly step away from the stresses and distractions of regular everyday life.
- The benefits of outpatient care include greater flexibility and opportunities to practice newly developed skills in a real world environment, with the ability to process these experiences and receive informed feedback when treatment is in session.
Types of treatment that can be beneficial for people who have adjustment disorders include:
- Prescription medications to treat symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other co-occurring concerns
- Individual psychotherapy
- Group therapy
- Family therapy and support
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- Trauma-focused therapies
- Holistic therapies
- Psychoeducation sessions
Therapy and psychoeducation sessions may focus on objectives such as:
- Improving your communication, conflict resolution, and stress management skills
- Replacing negative thought patterns with healthier ways of thinking about yourself and the world around you
- Addressing anxiety, depression, or other co-occurring disorders
- Learning self-soothing techniques such as breathwork, meditation, and journaling
- Creating an effective personal support network
- Connecting with peer support groups or other relevant community-based resources
- Understanding how to advocate for your needs in a healthy manner
Contact Montare to Begin Treatment for Adjustment Disorders Today
Montare Behavioral Health is a trusted source of personalized inpatient and outpatient programming for adults whose lives have been disrupted by adjustment disorders and other mental health concerns. We also offer dual diagnosis services for individuals who also have co-occurring addictions.
Our network includes several mental health treatment centers in convenient locations throughout Southern California.
When you choose Montare Behavioral Health, you will work with a team of dedicated professionals who truly care about you. We’ll take the time to get to know you as a unique and valuable individual, so we can be sure we’re providing the focused services you need in the manner that’s best for you.
To learn more about how we can help you or a loved one, or to schedule a free assessment, please visit our Contact page or call us today.
