Adjustment disorder

Adjustment disorder is a distressing emotional or behavioral response to an identifiable stressor that causes significant impairment. The response is disproportionate to the stressor or disrupts functioning, but does not meet criteria for another mental disorder.

Stressor: A circumstance or event that places demands on a person and may produce psychological or physical strain. An identifiable stressor is required to connect the symptoms to a precipitating circumstance.
Coping: The cognitive and behavioral efforts used to manage demands and their emotional effects. Coping responses shape whether stress-related difficulties resolve or interfere with daily life.
Major depressive disorder: A mood disorder involving persistent depressed mood or loss of interest alongside other symptoms and impairment. A full depressive episode takes diagnostic priority over adjustment disorder.
Clinical assessment: A systematic evaluation of symptoms, history, functioning, and context to guide diagnosis and care. Assessment establishes the stressor relationship and rules out better-fitting diagnoses.
Prognosis: The expected course and likely outcome of a health condition. Recovery depends partly on how the stressor and its consequences develop.
Psychological stress: A response that arises when perceived demands tax or exceed a person's coping resources. Adjustment disorder is one possible clinical response to stress.
Stress response: The coordinated psychological and bodily changes that occur in response to perceived demands or threats. Adjustment symptoms emerge within a broader response to a stressor.
Post-traumatic stress disorder: A disorder that can follow trauma and involves intrusion, avoidance, negative changes in mood or thought, and heightened arousal. Its trauma-specific symptoms distinguish it from a general stressor-related response.
Psychotherapy: The use of structured psychological methods to address distress, behavior, and mental health difficulties. Therapy can strengthen coping and address the problems surrounding the stressor.
Stress-diathesis model: A model in which illness risk reflects interaction between vulnerability and environmental stress. It offers one framework for why similar stressors affect people differently.

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