Dual Diagnosis

It has been realised that a big percentage of persons addicted to substances or even to addictive behaviors, also suffer from psychiatric illness. The mental illness is either because of the use or the use is in the framework of self-therapy.
Mental diseases that coexist in the addiction, usually are:

• Disturbances of personality

Disturbance of personality with unstable and lightweight sentiment and stress. Patients with frontier disturbance of personality exasperate very easily, they have a disturbed perception of themselves and others, they are unstable in intense interpersonal relations, they function utmost without awareness of danger, while having explosions of intense sentiments (anger, sorrow, joy) without duration and usually have bad behavior.
It is henceforth feasible with coordinated efforts (pharmaceutical education, psychotherapies, artistic and other mediations) for patients that have co-ilness, to achieve abstention from the substances and the addictive behaviors on one hand, and complete functionalism in the community on the other.

• Disturbances of Disposal
  • Depression with feelings of inferiority, sorrow, guilt and vexation. Thoughts such as desire, self punishment, suicide and self traumatising and behaviors such as aggressiveness and decreased activity, constitute symptoms that are often met in illness that suffers from depression.
  • Bipolar psychosis - Fury with feelings of omnipotence, euphoria, explosions of anger and depression in mixed phases. Patients that suffer from fury are usually very optimistic having a feeling of greatness, presenting excessive activity, eccentricity and repulsiveness while also having decreased sleep and deal with dangerous activities.

• Tense Disturbances

Tense disturbances are distinguished in disturbances of panic and post - traumatic stress. Symptoms such as intensity, phobias, concern, panic or fear that spring from ugly thoughts and difficulties of concentration usually appear in persons that suffer from Tense Disturbances. They often demonstrate extreme self protection against third parties, they avoid incidents that create fear and have bodily stress symptoms (sometimes they resemble cardiac problems).

• Thought Disturbances

Schizophrenia with lifting of suspensions, level sentiment, anxious and depressing symptoms. Patients suffering from Disturbances of thought present confusion, difficulty in concentrating, hallucinations , while usually the behavior is disorganised and eccentric.