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Mental and emotional disorder, defined.

Mental and emotional disorder means a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in a person and is associated with present distress or disability or with significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom. Such disorders may take many forms and have varying causes but must be considered a manifestation of behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunction in the person. Reasonable descriptions of the kinds and degrees of mental and emotional disorders may be found in the revisions of accepted nosologies such as the International Classification of Diseases and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.