What is Dual Diagnosis?
Dual diagnosis occurs when an individual is suffering with both chemical dependency and a psychiatric or emotional illness. These illnesses can damage a person physically, socially, and psychologically, and thus interfere with normal functioning. The dual disorders may affect each other, and each disorder predisposes relapse in the other disease. At times the symptoms can overlap and even mask each other, making treatment and diagnosis difficult. To fully recover, a person needs treatment in both disorders equally and simultaneously.
Other names for this type of illness are:
- Co-morbid disorders
- Co-occurring disorders
- Concurrent disorders
- Co-morbidity
- Dual disorders
Dual diagnosis can be difficult to identify. Many of the symptoms of drug abuse (such as extreme anxiety, depression, paranoia, delusions and hallucinations) are similar to those of mental illness. Many of the effects on one’s life (severe decline in self-care and functioning) may also be similar. Often, one problem is blamed on the other.
Substance abuse complicates almost every aspect of care for a person with a mental illness. Mental health professionals and families of the mentally ill may underestimate the amount of drugs and/or alcohol dependency among people in their care. There may be several reasons for this:
People with a mental illness may abuse drugs or alcohol covertly. It may be difficult to separate the behaviors due to mental illness from those due to chemical dependency. It takes time to unravel the interacting effects of substance abuse and mental illness
