Emotional First Aid Training Manual Nov 2015

Mental Health Disorders

Do children react differently than adults?

Children and teens can have extreme reactions to trauma, but their symptoms
may not be the same as adults. In very young children, these symptoms can
include:

• Bedwetting, when they’d learned how to use the toilet before
• Forgetting how to do something or being unable to talk
• Acting out the scary event during playtime
• Being unusually clingy with a parent or other adult.

Older children and teens usually show symptoms more like those seen in adults.
They may also develop disruptive, disrespectful, or destructive behaviors. Older

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Mental Health Disorders

children and teens may feel guilty for not preventing injury or deaths. They may
also have thoughts of revenge.

Risk Factors for PTSD

Risk factors for PTSD include:
• Living through dangerous events and traumas
• Having a history of mental illness
• Getting hurt
• Seeing people hurt or killed
• Feeling horror, helplessness, or extreme fear
• Having little or no social support after the event
• Dealing with extra stress after the event, such as loss of a loved one, pain
and injury, or loss of a job or home.
• Trauma survivors must have been exposed to actual or threatened: death,
serious injury, sexual violence
• The exposure can be: direct, witnessed, indirect, by hearing of a relative
or close friend who has experienced the event—indirectly experienced
death must be accidental or violent repeated or extreme indirect exposure
to qualifying events, usually by professionals—non-professional exposure
by media does not count

How is Someone Diagnosed with PTSD?

Not every traumatized person develops full-blown or even minor PTSD.

Symptoms usually begin within 3 months of the incident but occasionally emerge
years afterward.

They must last more than a month to be considered PTSD. The course of the
illness varies. Some people recover within 6 months, while others have
symptoms that last much longer. In some people, the condition becomes chronic.

A doctor who has experience helping people with mental illnesses, such as a
psychiatrist or psychologist, can diagnose PTSD. The diagnosis is made after the
doctor talks with the person who has symptoms of PTSD.

To be diagnosed with PTSD, a person must have all of the following for at least 1
month:

• At least one re-experiencing symptom
• At least three avoidance symptoms
• At least two hyperarousal symptoms
• Symptoms that make it hard to go about daily life, go to school or work, be

with friends, and take care of important tasks.

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Mental Health Disorders

PTSD is often accompanied by depression, substance abuse, or one or more of
the other anxiety disorders (Comorbidity).

How Do I Help Someone Who is Battling PTSD

You will learn creative ways to help teens, young adults, and adults cope with the
emotional crisis they are facing in the next lesson. However, here are a few very
important things to keep in mind when on the Teen TXT Crisis Line with
someone battling PTSD:

• Normalize-Be affirming and let the Person in crisis know that when they
face a traumatic event, it will affect us in a lot of ways (see the symptoms
and the way the brain processes trauma, fight or flight). Normalize for the
Person in crisis that having memories about the traumatic event is okay.
The feelings exposed during those memories will dissipate as you help
them process their experience.

• Identify Triggers-What causes someone with PTSD to have presenting
symptoms are triggers. Help the Person in Emotional Crisis to understand
what triggers their PTSD related behavior, and ask them what they could
do instead of get angry, impulsive, or anxious. Help them redirect their
PTSD response to the trigger.

• Don’t force the person to process the Traumatic Event-In the fear that
you might re-traumatize them. Let me tell you at their pace and simply use
“emotional connecting” dialogue

• Talk about the Facts of the Traumatic Event Then Process the Emotions
and Beliefs the individual developed about themselves and life based on
that event.

• Focus on What has happened to the person rather than What is Wrong
with the person

There are additional lessons on coping strategies and methods to increase
coping skills in the lives of Person in crises on our website.


 

Conclusion


 

What we have covered in this lesson are the most common mental disorders that
we will encounter in the general population. However, I wanted to give you a
perspective of how many mental illnesses we have in our society.

We will not go into detail training about these, simply because they require
specific approaches to diagnosing, and almost all of these are things we will not
encounter on the text line.

If you believe you are dealing with a mental illness that we haven’t covered,
specific training will be provided to you about that disorder.

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Mental Health Disorders

Our role as Emotional First Aider’s is to move the Person in Emotional Crisis
from “Becoming Unwell” to “Being Well.” We will live these kinds of disorders for
the mental health professional.

Adult Mental Disorders

• Alcohol/Substance Abuse
• Alcohol/Substance Dependence
• Anxiety Disorders
• Adult Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD/ADD)
• Bipolar Disorder: Overview, Symptoms
• Major Depressive Episode
• Hypomanic Episode
• Manic Episode
• Mixed Specifier (Formerly Mixed Episode)
• Depression
• Eating Disorders
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Schizophrenia
• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, see Depressive Disorder with

Seasonal Pattern)
• Social Anxiety Phobia
• Dissociative Disorders
• Depersonalization Disorder
• Dissociative Amnesia
• Dissociative Fugue
• Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD)
• Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (NOS
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Binge Eating Disorder
• Bulimia Nervosa
• Dyspareunia
• Erectile Disorder (ED)
• Exhibitionistic Disorder
• Female and Male Orgasmic Disorders
• Female Sexual Arousal Disorder
• Fetishistic Disorder
• Frotteuristic Disorder
• Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder
• Premature (Early) Ejaculation
• Sex Addiction (not a recognized diagnostic category at this time)
• Sexual Masochism and Sadism
• Transvestic Disorder

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Mental Health Disorders

• Vaginismus
• Voyeuristic Disorder
• Circadian Rhythm Sleep-Wake Disorder
• Hypersomnolence (Hypersomnia, Primary)
• Insomnia Disorder
• Nightmare Disorder
• Narcolepsy
• Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder
• Restless Legs Syndrome
• Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Arousal Disorders (Sleep Terror

Disorder & Sleepwalking Disorder)
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Avoidant Personality Disorder
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Dependent Personality Disorder
• Histrionic Personality Disorder
• Multiple Personality Disorder, see Dissociative Identity Disorder
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
• Paranoid Personality Disorder
• Schizoid Personality Disorder
• Schizotypal Personality Disorder
• Acute Stress Disorder
• Adjustment Disorder
• Agoraphobia
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Bereavement
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder
• Brief Psychotic Disorder
• Conversion Disorder
• Cyclothymic Disorder
• Delusional Disorder
• Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder
• Dysthymic Disorder
• Gender
 Dysphoria
 
• Hoarding Disorder
• Hypochondriasis (Illness Anxiety)
• Intermittent Explosive Disorder
• Kleptomania
• Major Neurocognitive Disorder
• Minor Neurocognitive Disorder
• Pain Disorder
• Panic Attack
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Pathological Gambling
• Pedophilia

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Mental Health Disorders

• Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
• Unspecified Psychotic Disorder
• Pyromania
• Reactive Attachment Disorder
• Schizoaffective Disorder
• Schizophreniform Disorder
• Shared Psychotic Disorder (Delusional Symptoms in Partner)
• Somatic Symptom Disorder
• Specific Phobia
• New Specifiers of Bipolar Disorder and Depression
• Trichotillomania

Childhood Disorders


 

• Autism Spectrum Disorders (Formerly Asperger’s, Autistic Disorder, &
Rett’s)

• Attachment Disorder
• Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD/ADD)
• Autism
• Conduct Disorder
• Disorder of Written Expression
• Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
• Encopresis
• Enuresis
• Expressive Language Disorder
• Mathematics Disorder
• Mental Retardation, see Intellectual Disability
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• Reading Disorder
• Rumination Disorder
• Selective Mutism
• Separation Anxiety Disorder
• Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder
• Stereotypic Movement Disorder
• Stuttering
• Tourette’s Disorder
• Transient Tic Disorder

 

 

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