General Child and Adolescent Mental Health

A certain degree of anxiety is a normal feature of most people's lives, it becomes a problem when persistent, and interferes signfiicantly with normal life. For example, if you go into any school at exam time, all the children will be anxious, but some may be so anxious that they don't manage to get to school that morning.

Severe anxiety like this can harm children's mental and emotional wellbeing, affecting their self-esteem and confidence. They may become withdrawn and go to great lengths to avoid things or situations that make them feel anxious.

Uncontrolled anxiety affects the way you think and behave. For example, separation anxiety, social phobia and specific phobias can change relationships with people and objects

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a specific type of anxiety, that develops in response to a severe or prolonged period of stress, such as a threat to life. It often involves flashback and a feeling of constant elevated anxiety.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a form of severe anxiety, where what begin as self protective habits become dysfunctional. This manifests as thoughts that repeatedly intrude into awareness (obsessions, such as hygiene, safety, morality) and repeated unwelcome urges to perform certain actions (compulsions, such as washing, counting, and self harming). In both cases, there is little or no control.

Mood varies naturally throughout life for us all. A mood that becomes uncontrollable, and interferes with your ability to live, can become a diagnosable condition.

Depression is a state of persistent low mood and aversion to typical activity that can affect a person’s thoughts, behaviour, feelings and sense of well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, worried, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable or restless. They may lose interest in activities that were once pleasurable, experience loss of appetite or overeating, have problems concentrating, remembering details and making decisions.

Physical symptoms such as an inability to sleep (insomnia) or excessive sleeping, feeling constantly tired (fatigue), loss of energy, recurrent aches and pains, and digestive problems may also be present.

Mania, or hypomania, is a state of abnormally elevated arousal and energy level. During a manic episode, an individual will experience rapidly changing emotions and moods, highly influenced by surrounding stimuli. Although mania is often conceived as a "mirror image" to depression, the heightened mood can be either euphoric or dysphoric. As the mania intensifies, irritability can be more pronounced and result in anxiety or anger. People will often do extremely risky and unsafe activity when manic.

Sometimes our behaviour can feel uncontrollable or distressing, to ourself and others. This is also normal, but when it becomes persistent it might be appropriate to look for extra support.

Children and teens who suffer from what is sometimes called a personality disorder, such as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD) have difficulty understanding and relating to other people and to their environment. As a result, their family connections, social life, and academic progress might be difficult, and so this behavior leads to a feeling of loneliness and isolation.

Behavioural issues usually become apparent in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood.

ADHD ( Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is often confused with personlity issues, as people may have trouble concentrating and may act on impulse. Symptoms of ADHD are distinguished into inattentiveness, such as an inability to carry out instruction; and hyperactivity, such as excessive talking and little sense of danger.

These tend to be noticed at an earlier age and may become more noticeable when a child's circumstances change, such as when they start school.

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