Dual Diagnosis
Dual Diagnosis—now more commonly referred to as Co-Occurring Disorders (COD)—is the clinical situation where an individual experiences both a mental health disorder and a substance use disorder simultaneously. The American Counseling Association (ACA) and the DSM-5 emphasize that these conditions are interlinked; one does not necessarily cause the other, but they often exacerbate each other’s symptoms. For an intervention to be effective, both the psychological condition (such as depression or PTSD) and the chemical dependency must be treated integratively rather than as separate, isolated issues.
