Therapy and Treatment for Personality and Mood Disorders
Mood Disorders
These include anxiety, depression, panic bouts, social phobias, and the identification of personality disorders. Treatment is both insight-oriented and cognitive/behavioral, combining an effective combination of the two.
Patients may also benefit from other supports such as medication, partner and family involvement, hypnosis, and group support.
Depression
Depression is a pervasive state that can cripple a person’s ability to function and view their world with a constant sense of hopelessness and foreboding. It is a lonely place where one often feels abandoned and frightened, with little hope of change.
Depression can be the catalyst for bad decisions that can only worsen a person’s life.
Anxiety
Anxiety can be specific to an event or circumstances, or can also be a pervasive mindset that impairs or prohibits interaction, participation, or forward movement into new possibilities.
Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar is often misconstrued as acute mood swings. In fact, bipolar disorders entail prolonged bouts of depression and manic episodes. Depression can be as severe as that described above. The manic episodes often involve both a hyperactive state combined with poor reality testing.
In a manic state, a person can make poor decisions often resulting in poor life-changing decisions, great financial loss, and alienating loved ones. A person in a manic state can also feel euphoric, invincible, and impervious to the advice of others.
The treatment of bipolar disorder must recognize the long-term distinct patterns and address both effectively.
Personality Disorders
Personality disorders entail behavior patterns that may have once been functional at another point in life but only serve to harm the individual and alienate others in the present.
Personality disorders often include behaviors that both control others and drive them away. They prohibit the establishment of healthier relationships and greatly narrow an individual’s perspective of the world and their place in it.