Running head: ANXIETY DISORDER AND ADJUSTMENT DISORDER
A Comparison of Anxiety Disorder and Adjustment Disorder Victoria Argueta Walden University
Diagnosis and Assessment Dr. Edward Beck February 6, 2011
Adjustment Disorder 2
The DSM-IV-TR has two general categories for a person’s response to stress; they are adjustment disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Many factors influence a person’s response to stressful situations. Several relatively common stressors; prolonged unemployment, loss of a loved one through death, and marital separation/divorce, may produce a great deal of stress and psychological maladjustment, resulting in adjustment disorder ( Butcher, Minkea & Hooley, 2010). The DSM-IV-TR states that there are seven primary types of anxiety; phobic disorders, panic disorder with or without agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic disorder. Mineka & Zinbarg (1996, 2006), report among common psychological causes, we will see that classical conditioning of fear/panic and/or anxiety to a range of stimuli plays a prominent role in most of these disorders. A case of general anxiety disorder will be discussed later in this comparison between anxiety and adjustment disorder.
A person meeting the criteria for Adjustment Disorder has a maladaptive response to a common stressor,that occurs within three months of the stressor, their reaction to the stressor may be excessive. is a short-term condition that occurs when a person is unable to cope with, or adjust to, a particular source of stress, such as