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Psychiatry is ...
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If you need help
·
What
is a psychiatrist?
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Mental
Illness: Warning Signs
· Psychiatric
Treatments
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A person displaying one or more of these warning signs should be evaluated by a psychiatrist or another physician as soon as possible:
- Marked
change in personality or behavior
- Inability
to cope with problems of daily life
- Strange, unrealistic ideas (delusions) or hallucinations (seeing, hearing, smelling)
- Excessive
anxiety or suspiciousness
- Prolonged
or excessive sadness or apathy (not caring)
- Marked
changes in eating or sleeping habits, or in energy levels
and speed of thinking or talking
- Thinking
or talking about suicide
- Extreme
or alternating "highs" and "lows" of
mood
- Abuse
of alcohol or drugs
- Excessive
anger, hostility or violent behavior
- Excessive
fear of people, places or events
- Difficulty
with memory and concentration
Additional symtoms in children may include:
- Regressing to an earlier stage of development (toilet training reversal, increased finger sucking, or crying)
- Refusal to go to school, talk or play with friends and family, spending excessive time alone or emotionally withdrawn
- Unusually oppositional, irritable, or impulsive behavior, especially if potentially dangerous (i.e. destructive, violent, or accident-prone)
- New onset or increased tendency to lie or tell fantastic stories to cover failures and fears, after the age of 5 or 6
- Reluctance to talk about emotional or physical hurts, injuries
- Bullying, stealing, fighting, or other anti-social behavior especially after age of 3 of 4
- Unexplained drop in performance
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