It is worth familiarising yourself with the diagnostic categories generally used in discussions of counselling and psychotherapy clients. The ‘mood disorders’ and ‘anxiety disorders’, particularly, relate to sadness and fear:
This is a very readable introduction to the history of how ‘madness’ and ‘mental illness’ have been understood and treated over time:
This engaging book focuses on psychiatric diagnosis and the DSM, presenting a critical perspective on the definitions of ‘mental disorders’ put forward:
OpenLearn - The role of diagnosis in counselling and psychotherapy Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.