Personality disorders characterize by enduring and repetitive patterns of thinking, perceiving, reacting, and relating that cause significant distress to the affected person/or impair their capability to function.
There are ten personality syndromes, each with specific problems that affect self-image and response patterns to others and stressful situations.
Symptoms differ conditional on the type of personality disorder. For example, patients have difficulties relating to others and managing stress and a self-image that varies depending on the situation and how others perceive them.
The doctor diagnoses a personality disorder when the patient sees himself or other people in a way that differs from reality or when he continues to act in a manner that usually leads to negative consequences.
Drugs prescribed to treat behavior disorders usually do not change them, but they can help reduce distressing symptoms.
Table of Contents
Causes of Personality Disorders
Personality disorders result from the contact between genes and the atmosphere. Some persons are born with hereditary learning to have a personality disorder, and this tendency decreases or increases depending on environmental factors. Generally, genes and atmosphere contribute equally to the development of personality disorders.
Types of Personality Disorders
The ten personality disorders can gather into three groups (A, B, and C). The types within each group share certain essential personality traits, but each condition has distinctive features.
Group A characterises by appearing strange or eccentric. It comprises the following personality disorders, each with its distinctive characteristics:
- Paranoid: mistrust and suspicion
- Schizoid: lack of interest in others
- Schizotypal: strange or eccentric ideas and behavior
Group B characterises by appearing dramatic, sensitive, or erratic. It comprises the following personality disorders, each with its distinctive characteristics:
- Antisocial: social irresponsibility, disregard for others, and deception and manipulation of others for personal gain
- Borderline: Inner emptiness, fear of being abandoned in relationships, unstable relationships, trouble controlling emotions, and impulsive behavior
- Histrionic: Seeks attention and behaves in a dramatic way
- Narcissistic: Need to be admired, lack of empathy, and an exaggerated view of one’s worth (called grandiosity)
Group C is characterises by the person appearing anxious or fearful. It comprises the following personality disorders, each with its distinctive characteristics:
- Avoidance: avoiding interpersonal contact for fear of rejection
- Dependent: submission and dependency (due to a need for care)
- Obsessive Compulsive: perfectionism, rigidity, and stubbornness
Symptoms of Personality Disorders
Personality disorders essentially refer to problems related to
Identity and sense of self: Patients with a personality disorder do not have a clear or stable image of themselves. How they look changes depending on the situation and the people they are with. For example, these patients’ self-concepts may alternate between cruel and kind. They can also be fickle in their values and goals. For example, they may simultaneously be deeply religious in church but irreverent and disrespectful elsewhere. Self-esteem can be too high or low.
Interpersonal relationships: People with a personality disorder strive to establish close and stable relations with others. They may be unresponsive to others, emotionally distant, or lack empathy.
People with a personality disorder often appear inconsistent, confused, and frustrating to family members and others around them, including doctors. In addition, your parenting style may be erratic, distant, overly emotional, abusive, or irresponsible, and sometimes causes physical and mental problems in your children.
People with a character disorder may have trouble knowing reasonable, safe, and acceptable ways to treat and behave with others. Patients with personality disorders are often unaware of their responsibility for creating their problems.
Diagnosis of Personality Disorders
The diagnosis of a personality disorder requires a clinical interview and psychopathological evaluation, with particular emphasis on assessing the person’s patterns of functioning over time. In addition, it must ensure that the specific characteristics of the personality are not due to the effect of a substance (for example, a drug such as cocaine). To a transient mental state (for example, an anxiety attack or a manic episode in bipolar disorder ) or any other medical condition (such as the sequelae of a head injury).
Conclusion
Finally, personality disorders are a type of disorder in which these patterns begin to manifest in an unhealthy way, losing flexibility and generating marked behaviors; These pronounced ways of acting have been divided into three groups to be categorized and identified.
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