What Are the Most Common Psychological Disorders?

Depression is one of the most universal psychological disorders that affects nearly every aspect of life. Impulse control and addiction are common psychological disorders that involve people who cannot stop doing something. Personality disorders are a group of problems where a person has one or more traits that exist to an extreme degree. Anxiety disorders, which are characterized by abnormal fear or dread, are another group of problems that psychology professionals often encounter. Although many people fail to recognize them as mental issues, eating disorders are also common psychological disorders.

Depression is considered to be one of the most common psychological disorders. It is an illness that negatively affects a person's thinking by making the individual feel sad, frustrated, or angry. As a result, the person generally experiences negative consequences in other aspects of her life, such as her relationships or work performance. Many people are not aware that there are several types of depression, which include major depression and non-specific depression, so specific information about prevalence, causes, and treatment depend on an individual's actual diagnosis. These conditions are often addressed in whole or in part by a group of drugs known as antidepressants.

Impulse control and addiction disorders are a group of problems in which individuals are unable to prevent themselves from engaging in certain acts. A pathological gambler, for example, cannot stop gambling, and an alcoholic cannot stopping drinking alcohol. Individuals with these problems are often so driven to act in ways that are obviously harmful that they destroy their relationships and experience other negative consequences in their lives. The treatment of these common psychological disorders depends on the condition that a person is diagnosed with, but may include stress management, psychotherapy, and cognitive therapy.

Personality disorders such as narcissism, paranoid personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder are conditions that involve people who have extreme traits. For example, with paranoid personality disorder, a person is abnormally distrustful or suspicious of other people, which results in that individual negatively, and generally incorrectly, interpreting the behavior of others. Many regular individuals may have maladaptive personality traits associated with these conditions. The difference is that, for a person with one of the conditions in this group, those traits result in psychological distress and inhibit the ability to cope normally.

Conditions involving anxiety are some of the the most common psychological disorders. This group of problems include obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Although these conditions may seem drastically different, they all involve individuals who are abnormally overcome with feelings of fear or dread. Medication is commonly used to treat these problems, but is generally not recommended without psychotherapy. The medication usually only makes the symptoms manageable for individuals but does not cure their problems.

There are also a number of common psychological disorders that are characterized by abnormal habits and attitudes toward food. With anorexia, a person does not want to eat, whereas with binge eating a person engages in periods of uncontrolled, excessive consumption. As many of the most obvious effects of these conditions are physical, many people fail to recognize the problems as psychological disorders. In many cases, both nutritional treatment and psychological treatment are required.