Mood Disorders

 Common Characteristics

The primary symptom of all disorders in this category is a disturbance in mood, i.e., an inappropriate, exaggerated, or limited range of feelings.  Everybody gets down sometimes, and everybody experiences a sense of excitement and emotional pleasure.  To be diagnosed with a mood disorder, your feelings must be to the extreme, in other words, when crying, and/or feeling depressed, or suicidal become frequent occurrences.  Or the patient presents the opposite extreme: for instance, by having excessive energy where sleep is not needed for days at a time and manifesting significantly hindered decision making ability during this period.