403.00 Millenialmania (alternate name Y2K Mania)

This new Disorder is increasingly being seen in Doctor's offices, mental health clinics, and offices of individual therapists. We propose to put it either under Anxiety Disorders or to create a special temporary category for it, which will no longer be needed after January 1, 2000.

Diagnostic Criteria:

The presence of four out of six of the criteria determine a positive diagnosis:

1. Omen Building: Interpreting every day reports of Y2K problems, crime, disasters, and sexual acting out in high places as portents of the Final Days.

2. Obsessively reading about prophecies in the Bible (Revelations, Deuteronomy), and the tabloid press, relating them to Y2K, and talking as if they were the Truth about the imminent End of the World, as we know it.

3. Making life decisions as if only a short time were left. Includes compulsively stocking up on food staples, ammunition, and other things needed, based on the assumption that only those prepared will survive a Y2K caused collapse of organized society.

4. Obsessive worrying about their past sins and fear of being cast into the hell fires on Judgment Day.

5. Recurrent cognitive rumination about how to prepare for the day of the Apocalypse. This may include obsessing about what to wear, final meals, whether the end will be by "rapture" or by fire, etc.

6. Distorted thought processes in which any mention in tabloids, TV, and movies of UFO sightings, alien invasions, or abductions are seen as "signs" of increasing Satanic acitivity, including Satanic possession, and ultimately of the impending appearance of the Anti-Christ. (Rule out Capgrass syndrome)

Subtypes and Specifiers:

403.0 With Depressed Mood
403.24 With Anxiety
403.28 With Mixed Anxiety and Depressed Mood
403.3 With Transducive Schizoaffective features
403.5 With Obsessive Compulsive features.
403.6 With Paraphelias (with mannequins of extaterrestrials, eg. E.T., Ewoks, Yoda, etc)
403.9 Unspecified. Reserved for other maladaptive behaviors, some of which may surface after January 1, 2000 (viz. Acute Agoraphobia Catatonia, Conversion Disorders)

(Prepared by Hanno Kirk, PhD, LCSW, and Jo Weisbrod, MA, LPC, Lewisburg WV)