A 31-year-old man with no psychiatric history comes to the emergency room complaining...¨ symptoms of anxiety. Two days ago he experienced another episode of the same symptoms... .... 1 week ago he broke up with his partner... ruled out any organic pathology....:
Here it is good that they tell you their antecedents (we all have antecedents because we all have a life) and that they rule out organic pathology. That is fundamental. Let us not forget that also the hypochondriacs have body. We first eliminate the most striking "acute" personality disorder. Personality accompanies us all our lives. There are no "acute" characteristics in our personality. Depressive disorder? There is a time criterion that is not met, it may be sad, but sad is not depression (1). agoraphobia? if it was something like that we would have been told the context post-traumatic stress reaction? That's a good one.  The correct term would be post-traumatic stress disorder or acute stress reaction, and according to ICD 10: "The stressor may be a devastating traumatic experience involving a serious threat to the safety or physical integrity of the patient or loved one(s) (e.g., natural catastrophes, accidents, battles, muggings, rapes) or an abrupt and threatening change in the individual's rank or social environment (e.g., loss of several loved ones, house fire, etc.). )" or more briefly: "exceptionally threatening or catastrophic nature" Breaking up with a partner I understand is hard, but not exceptional. So by elimination 5. Crisis of distress. This is a useful question, common in daily practice, and so we see that we must avoid giving a diagnosis of long evolution for a natural reaction. Diagnoses 1 to 4 would be like calling diabetic the one who has hyperglycemia after eating three muffins. Useful and realistic question.
Post-traumatic stress reaction.
Acute" dependent personality disorder.
Depressive disorder.
Agoraphobia.
Anguish crisis.
Breaking up with a partner I understand is hard, but not exceptional.
We first eliminate the most striking "acute" personality disorder. Personality accompanies us all our lives. There are no "acute" characteristics in our personality.
There is a time criterion that is not met, it may be sad, but sad is not depression
if it was something like that we would have been told the context