Emotional spectrum disorder

Emotional spectrum disorder describes a range of conditions classified as mood disorders in the DSM-5, published in 2013. Individuals with emotional spectrum disorder (ESD) include those diagnosed with mood regulating disorders, including:

• Depression
• Bipolar disorder and related conditions including mania
• Persistent anxiety
• Borderline personality disorder
• Adjustment disorder

Commonalities

In psychoanalytic theory, splitting and transference are frequent and common defense mechanisms among ESD patients. In such cases, the individual is unable regulate emotions over perception of objective reality. When those emotions align with objective reality, it goes unnoticed by others. When such emotions conflict with objective reality, the individual is unable to reconcile the two, and their hyperactive emotions rewrite the events of reality in the individual's mind as if that was the objective reality. The individual thinks "I would not feel this way if events did not occur like this, and given that I feel this way, events must have occurred like this." Once the patient has rationalized their revised perception of reality, additional stimuli challenging that perception typically causes further depression and/or anxiety until such stimuli can be rationalized to fit the patient's revised perception of reality. In advanced cases of such disorders, and especially with bipolar and borderline personality disorders, some patients react to such challenging stimuli with violence to others or even self-harm.

Gender and biology

Over 25% of women in the United States are actively prescribed antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, anti-psychotics, or other mood-altering drugs. Women are diagnosed with depression at greater rates than men.

One theory suggests abnormalities in hormone levels during prenatal development causes predisposition to spectrum disorders. Another theory suggests that women are more prone to depression due to life circumstances and cultural stressors that women experience at higher rates than men, such as unequal power and status, work overload, and sexual and physical abuse. Depression symptoms in men may also present differently than they do in women, contributing to men being diagnosed at lower rates than women.