Mood Challenges
Therapy in Arizona & Florida

Life can be challenging, and it is normal to feel a variety of emotions such as sadness, loneliness, worry and fear.  But when those emotional experiences become a pattern, they can begin to interfere with our ability to function in lots of areas: relationships, self-care, work/school, and more.  Two of the most common mental health problems among people are mood disorders and anxiety disorders. Mood and anxiety disorders mainly occur due to the complex interplay of various psychological, biological, genetic, social and economic factors. 

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Mood Disorders:

Mood disorders (like major depression) manifest themselves as a series of symptoms that occur simultaneously and last up to a few weeks. During the major depression, the individual has a depressed mood and feels indifferent to most or all activities for at least two weeks straight. There are almost always substantial changes associated with mood changes, including changes in energy, sleep patterns, concentration, and weight. There are many symptoms of psychomotor retardation, including persistent feelings of worthlessness and inappropriate guilt or recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.

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• Major depressive disorder is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Also called clinical depression, it affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. You may have trouble doing normal day-to-day activities, and sometimes you may feel as if life isn't worth living.More than just a bout of the blues, depression isn't a weakness and you can't simply "snap out" of it. 

• Dysthymia refers to a chronic mood disorder in which you lose interest or pleasure in most of your daily activities but don’t meet all of the criteria for major depression. At least two years of mild or moderate mood disorders are necessary to diagnose dysthymia.

• A manic episode is characterized by persistent periods of euphoria, irritability, or expansive mood that last at least one week. An individual with a mood disorder is hyperactive, grandiose, flight of thoughts, talkative, sleep-deprived, and distracted. There is a rapid onset of symptoms and symptoms in manic episodes within a few days. When you suffer from mania, you are likely to experience psychotic hallucinations and delusions. 

• A hypomanic episode occurs when an elevated mood is similar to but not as severe as a manic episode (a couple of weeks or months). An individual with one or more manic episodes, usually in conjunction with one or more major depressive episodes, is often diagnosed with bipolar disorder. An individual with bipolar disorder may be classified as manic, depressive, or mixed, based on the clinical characteristics of the most recent episode. 

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Anxiety:

It's normal to feel anxious from time to time, especially if your life is stressful. However, excessive, ongoing anxiety and worry that are difficult to control and interfere with day-to-day activities may be a sign of generalized anxiety disorder. Generalized anxiety disorder symptoms can vary and may include persistent worrying or anxiety out of proportion to the impact of the events, overthinking plans and solutions to all possible worst-case outcomes, perceiving situations and events as threatening, even when they aren't, difficulty handling uncertainty, indecisiveness​, inability to relax, feeling restless, and feeling keyed up or on edge, and difficulty concentrating, or the feeling that your mind "goes blank"

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If any of these feel familiar to you, we can support you using a variety of interventions, and by helping you understand more about your body's "silent surveillance system" and by teaching you real world tools to help you resolve these issues.

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