Adjustment Disorder

Adjustment Disorder is an intense reaction to stressful change that can bring about changes in mood such as disturbance of conduct, anxiety, depression or a mixture of all of the above. For example, a teenager coming to counseling to seek support after their parents divorced. Adjustment disorders diagnoses can show up in different ways for the individuals experiencing them. A teenager may start struggling with dropping grades in school, or somatic symptoms due to anxiety such as stomach aches or headaches. That teenager would receive a diagnosis of adjustment disorder with a specifier of anxiety. Meanwhile, their sibling experiencing the same difficult life transition may start withdrawing from friends and fighting classmates, which would result in a slightly different diagnosis of adjustment disorder with disturbance of conduct and mixed mood.