Summarize the following:
Adjustment disorder is characterized by severe and extreme distress following a specific event or chronic events. To qualify as a disorder, the symptoms must be more severe than expected. The symptoms also impair occupational, school, social, or personal functioning.  It is normal for a healthy person to experience stress during a job change, divorce, big move, or other life event. However, stress response syndrome is much more severe than a typical reaction to these events. To qualify for a diagnosis, the symptoms must not be related to normal grieving for a loss. To qualify for a diagnosis of stress response syndrome, your symptoms must clearly result from a stressor and appear within three months of a stressful event. Generally, symptoms occur as a direct result of a specific stressor, although can result from chronic or multiple events.  If symptoms of an acute stress response endure more than 6 months past one single event, a diagnosis of stress response syndrome is less likely and another diagnosis may be warranted. Acute symptoms exist no longer than 6 months or less and typically resolve once the stressor is removed or distanced. An acute stressor can include starting a new school or moving somewhere different. Chronic symptoms last more than 6 months and may result from chronic stressors or stressors with lasting effects. These can include living in an unsafe place, enduring a tragic and total loss, or enduring continual pain or violence. If you are diagnosed with stress response syndrome, this means that you do not have symptoms of other stress-related psychological diagnoses. For example, the symptoms cannot be explained better through another diagnosis, such as PTSD, depression, or anxiety. Any symptoms you experience can clearly be traced back to a stressor and not an ongoing mental health problem.  If you have ongoing anxiety or bouts of depression, any symptoms of stress response disorder remain clearly outside of those symptoms. The stress response is not post-traumatic stress disorder.

Summary:
Understand the severity of distress. Note the duration of symptoms. Identify acute or chronic symptoms. Realize the symptoms are not derived from other disorders.