Category of mental disorder featuring significant emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable event that precipitated significant psychological or social stress.

Adjustment disorders are maladpative responses to stressful or psychologically distressing life events, such as being placed in day care for the first time, being injured in an accident, or experiencing a natural disaster. The diagnosis of an adjustment disorder requires that the inappropriate emotional or behavioral symptoms develop within three months of the stressful event or occurrence.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has identified and catagorized several varieties of adjustment disorders, depending on accompanying symptoms and their duration. These subtypes and their related symptoms are as follows:

1.) adjustment disorder with depressed mood, marked by tearfulness and feelings of intense discouragement;

2.) adjustment disorder with anxiety, where the individual appears extremely nervous or jittery, or the child displays an unusual or intense fear of being...