Personality Disorders

Modified: 2024-07-22 12:49 PM CDST

• Personality disorders are long lasting, consistent, extreme personality characteristics that cause unhappiness or impaired adjustment.
• They include:
  • paranoid personality disorder,
  • schizoid personality disorder,
  • schizotypal personality disorder,
  • borderline personality disorder,
  • narcissistic personality disorder,
  • histrionic personality disorder,
  • avoidant personality disorder,
  • dependent personality disorder,
  • obsessive-compulsive personality disorder,
  • antisocial personality disorder.
• Personality disorders are ingrained, pervasive, and resistant to change.
  • Their effects on personality may range from mild to severe.
  • Individuals are not very likely to change behaviors under the control of a personality disorder.
  • Many marital break-ups, for example, may be caused by one party's premarital expectation of a partner's ability to change such behavior.
    • For example, believing a spouse's personality disorders will change following marriage.
• The major characteristics of each personality disorder are given below:
  • Paranoid: suspicious, expect bad treatment, blame others
  • Schizoid: difficult in relationships, indifferent to others
  • Schizotypal: seriously eccentric or bizarre, magical thinking, may be mildly schizophrenic.
  • Borderline: self-important, selfish, lack empathy, manipulative, fantasize about past and future successes.
  • Histrionic: "on stage," attention seeking, showy but shallow emotions, manipulative and demanding.
  • Avoidant: avoid relationships for fear of rejection; very low self-esteem.
  • Dependent: low self-confidence, reluctant to take responsibility, subordinate needs in favor of close others, sensitive to criticism.
  • Obsessive-compulsive: high concern for details and rules, work oriented, cold and distant, relationship difficulties.
  • Antisocial: superficially charming and sincere but actually very self-centered and insincere; formerly psychopathic personality disorder.

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